Garden Walks.
459. Formerly grass walks were common in gardens; but the inconveniences attending them, especially damp ness, and liability to wear bare in the middle, have caused them to be in a great measure relinquished ; and they are now to be seen only in a few old gardens. Walks, at the present clay, are principally made with gravel. If gravel walks be properly formed at first, much future labour is saved. If judged necessary, a drain should be made to pass below them ; but at all events a quantity of lime-rubbish or very coarse gravel should form the foundation. In the flower-garden it is not necessary to have a fine permeable bottom of earth, such as is proper under gravel-walks next to fruit•tree borders. Lime-rubbish prevents the lodging of earth worms, which are so apt to disfigure walks, and also tends to drain the walks and keep them dry. Over the rubbish is laid screened gravel. In sonic places gingle from the sea-shore is used; but this does not bind without the addition of a little clayey matter. Good gravel may often be gut from some inland pit, where there is naturally a slight mixture of clay. Tile gravel pits of Kensington and of Blackheath have long been celebrated. If gravel be liberally laid on at first, the face of the walk may after wards be more easily refreshed, by turning over the sur face gravel, and then using the roller.
If the walk be five or six feet broad, it should rise about an inch and a half in the centre. It is often made to rise considerably more ; hut the appearance is thereby impair ed, and the walker is annoyed. If the walk be of large dimensions, the height in the centre may increase in pro portion : so that in ten feet of breadth, a rise of two or three inches is quite allowable. The walks of the flower garden should scarcely be less than five or six feet wide ; nor can there in general be any good reason for their ex ceeding eight feet. They should be two or three inches lower in level than the flower-borders, otherwise these last would look flat and mean.
The rollers used for levelling and smoothing the walks, are formed sometimes of wood, sometimes of stone ; but the largest and best are of cast iron. Rolling immediately after rain is practised, the gravel binding readily at that time.
460. In many places only the principal walks arc cover ed with gravel ; all the subordinate ones, and the paths through woods or large shrubberies, being merely laid with sand. Gravel walks are much injured by the drip of trees
in rainy weather, and are not easily repaired ; while sand walks require only to have their surface stirred with a Dutch hoe, and to be raked smooth again. It is, however, of importance to have a foundation of very coarse gravel, broken field stones, or lime rubbish, below the sand. Sand from an inland pit, having commonly a tendency to bind, is preferable to pure sea or river sand. In places near the sea, and where banks of shells occur on the beach, sea shells, when broken, will be found to form a very neat walk, also susceptible of binding to a certain degree. The utility of the binding quality is manifold ; it gives the walk a neat appearance; it renders it more pleasant for walking on ; and it permits of sweeping, without deranging the surface.
461. If the flower garden is to consist of parterres sepa rated by grass-turf, the first formation of these little lawns requires particular attention. When the ground is delved over and levelled, a stratum of sand or very poor sandy earth, perhaps three inches thick, is laid on, and over this an equal depth of good earth, on which to sow the grass seeds. The use of the poor soil below is to prevent the grass from getting rank. This is particularly necessary, where a mixture of rye-grass and brome grasses (particu larly Bromus squarrosus and multylorus) is sown ; and all the grass seed, it may be observed, sold in this country, consists of such a mixture. Were only fescue grasses sown (Festuca duriuscula and ovina,) with perhaps crested dog's tail (Cynosurus cristatus), there would be much less danger of over-luxuriant patches appearing, while their fine wiry leaves and slightly glaucous hue, would ren der the turf highly beautiful. The selection of grasses for lawns is too little attended to. The same kind of seed is sown indiscriminately in exposed and in shady situations. If white clover and rye-grass be sown under trees, it is little wonder that the ground should remain bare : if the seeds of Poa nemoralis were scattered in such situations, the bare spaces would soon be covered with a lively green sward. A judicious little essay on the employment of the gramina, and particularly of the species last mentioned, presented to the Highland So ciety by the late Mr George Don of Forfar, may be seen in the third volume of the Transactions of that Society, p. 194, et seq.