blows most roughly from any particular quarter, the principal stake should be placed on that side, that the plant may blow away from the stake, and not upon it. Some hay, matting, or other soft substance, should be put between the plant and the stake, and also round the plant where the cord embraces it. More than one or even two stakes (fig. 202) will sometimes be requisite for very strong or very heavy plants. But if the stakes are driven down very deeply, they need not stand more than one, two, or three feet above the ground, which will render them less objectionable. If only one stake be employed, it may, by chance, be able to do its work if placed behind the plant, so as not to be seen from the walk; and this is everywhere desirable, when it does not diminish the power of support. No stake should ever be disproportionately thick, or it will appear clumsy. When one end is thicker than the other, the thick end must be inserted in the ground. And it ought to be remembered, too, that the higher any stake stands out of the ground, the greater will be the power of leverage upon it, and the deeper should it descend into the earth.

In applying stakes to plants, the time when their roots are bare, and before they are covered in with soil, should be chosen for placing the stake in its right position, that it may not injure any of the roots. If driven down at random after the roots are all buried, it will most probably damage or sever some of the more valuable of them. The nearer it can be placed to the stem of the plant, consistently with safety, the more power it will possess, and the less distinctly will it be visible. The tree should in all cases be fastened as firmly as possible to the stake; always providing that it has room to expand itself for two or three years.

11. Where good turf can be had without much trouble or expense, it will be more immediately beautiful and satisfying to sod a lawn than to sow it down with fresh seeds. And even if it be too serious an item under any circumstances, the edgings of walks, and the outlines of beds should be everywhere defined by a strip of old turf, at least a foot in width. This will prevent

the seeds from being scattered on the walks or borders, and make the edgings firmer and less ragged for several years. Indeed, it is impossible to make a sound and satisfactory edging, except with old turf.

Sods should always be chosen from an old pasture, and one where sheep have been accustomed to graze will be best. The autumn months offer decidedly the fittest season for laying them down, as they will then at once take hold of the ground, without the danger of their separating, and curling up at the edges, during the succeeding summer. But any mild weather throughout the winter, or a showery time up to a late period in the spring, may be selected for the operation, if more convenient. The soil should always be well stirred as the sods are laid, and if there is any chance of their suffering from drought, or if the grass is not sufficiently fine, a little light soil, mixed with lime, may be strewn over them after they are laid, and swept into their interstices with a scrubby broom. A few of the finer grass seeds may be added, if it be in spring. Sods, too, ought always to be laid lengthwise up and down steep slopes, or at right angles with a line of walk, as the edgings will then remain firmer, and may be cut truer.

12. For sowing down grass seeds, the ground should be lightly dug over about the last week in March or August, and the seeds sown immediately after. It will be advisable to scatter them rather thickly, and then tread and rake them well in, and give the ground a thorough rolling. Care must be exercised to make up the ground, by the edgings already laid, to the level of the top of those edgings; in order that, when the young grass springs up, all may be on the same level, and there may not be a break or dip between the old and the new. After the grass has vegetated, it will simply require to be kept free from weeds until it is strong enough to be mown. A dry day, in a showery season, will of course be best for sowing grass, as it is for all other seeds. And it ought not to be forgotten that, on the evenness with which the ground is dug, levelled, and raked, will, hereafter, be the beauty and smoothness of the lawn.

Some of the fittest seeds for a lawn are Poa pratensis and triviale, Festuca ovina, Cynosurus cristatus, Avena flavescens, Trifolium minus, and white Dutch clover. Other and coarser kinds are usually added; and many good nurserymen have mixtures of their own, adapted to particular soils. But the smaller the proportion of the stronger growing kinds that is admitted, the finer, and smoother, and softer will be the grass, and the less mowing will it require. Any sort of rye-grass, some variety of which is too commonly introduced into mixtures, will be especially unsuitable.

13. Fruit-trees, trained to walls in kitchen-gardens, demand a rather peculiar preparation for the borders. If these last are made very deep, the roots of the trees will strike downwards instead of spreading abroad near the surface, and by that means they will be deprived of their fertility, acquire an extravagant luxuriance of growth, and become cankery. At one foot nine inches to two feet below the surface, such borders should have a thick layer of broken stones or rubbish, or a foundation of concrete, to stop the roots from descending lower. This deposit should also slope towards the front of the border, where it can be connected with a rubble drain, to be in its turn associated with the general drainage. (See fig. 204, which is to a scale of eight feet to an inch.) The entire border will thus be abundantly drained, and the effect of the whole process will be the laying of the border dry and warm, and accessible to air.

A fruit-tree border should likewise be raised several inches or a foot at the back, where it can have a very trifling slope to the width of three feet, and afterwards fall away gradually to the front. It will thus catch the sun's rays still more perfectly, and be more open to the influences of the atmosphere. The roots of the trees will in this way, too, be encouraged to keep near the surface of the border; and the disposition may be increased and perpetuated by having a layer of well-rotted manure placed on the border every winter.

No particular compost is needed for the majority of fruitGood maiden loam, with a tolerably large admixture of

trees.

well-decayed manure, will be suitable for every kind of them ; and grape-vines may have a slight addition of lime or chalk.

Fig. 204.

The main thing, however, is to have the border dry, and warm, and comparatively shallow.

If choice Pear, or Apple, or Plum, or Cherry trees are grown on an inner border, and are wished to be rendered very productive without occupying much room, it will be worth while to treat these similarly, and raise the border, and have little more than eighteen inches in depth of good soil, with a thick layer of stone or other similar rubbish at the bottom, to check a downward growth, and complete the drainage. It will be much easier to retain trees thus treated in a dwarf and compact state, and they will assuredly bear more freely. Considering the inclination of such trees to become too strong and rambling, the practice will be decidedly remunerative, in the way of both restraint from intruding on other things, and productiveness.

14. Certain situations are so unfavourable to some kinds of vegetation, that they are only capable of bringing a few plants to perfection. And as it is generally better to grow a few things well than to have a more ample collection of indifferently cultivated plants; the knowledge of what will flourish in a given district, will be of great use to guide the planter in his selection.

While I cannot pretend, then, to furnish extended lists, which would demand a familiar local acquaintance with the entire country, it may perhaps be suggestive, at least, of what can be done, if I advert to a few common kinds of climatic peculiarities, and mention some of the most ornamental plants that are calcuIated to suit them.

Gardens in the neighbourhood of the sea, especially along the west coast, from north-west to south-west, are much afflicted with gales, which are of such violence, and carry such a quantity of saline matter with them, that the leaves and young shoots of some plants are frequently destroyed. Dense planting, on ground that has been perfectly drained and prepared, will be some slight preservative against such winds; and it will be useful to gather the plants together in masses, to a greater extent than would otherwise be required, that they may help to sustain and shelter one another. Single plants, or thin strips of them, are always most scourged and cut to pieces by such gales. Still, there are some plants which will endure a prodigious amount of blowing without material damage. And of these the Sycamore, and other Maples, the Elms, (especially the Wych Elm, the Cornish Elm being rather liable to be broken,) Birches, if planted young; Beech, when likewise planted in a small state; the common Alder, the mountain Ash, and several Services; and the Scotch Fir, Austrian Pine, Pinus laricio, montana, and pinaster, if a little sheltered, will make excellent trees for the sea-side. Poplars and Willows will be valuable for temporary shelter, as they will grow rapidly and tall, and thus protect the others till they become strong; after which they should, by degrees, be almost entirely weeded out.

Among dwarf sea-side plants, the Dogwoods, the Ribes sanguineum and aureum and grossulariaefolium, the deciduous Viburnums, the Symphorias, the Elders, the Tamarisk, some of the Spiræas, particularly salicifolia, the common Fly Honey-suckle, and the Berberries are particularly hardy for deciduous shrubs; while all the Hollies are invaluable as evergreens, and the common Rhododendrons, Heaths, Brooms, (when planted young,)