Private Gardens.
of the private gardens in this country are, it is believed, superior in some respects to those of any other. They are maintained in a more liberal style ; and the pro ducts are not only plentiful, but every -kind of fruit and culi nary vegetable is of the first quality of its kind. It may be affirmed, that in Britain a gentleman may derive from his own garden, with the aid glass and of fire-heat, a more varied and richer dessert,throughout the year, than is to he met with on the most luxurious table in any other country. To prove this assertion, it will be enough to run over the fruits successively afforded throughout the year, by a well conducted British garden. Strawberries, planted in pots and forced in a hot-house, produce their fruit about the middle of April, and forced cherries are ready at the same time. These are followed by early melons, about the be ginning of May. In June the first forced grapes and peaches are ready for the table, with the luscious pine apple : may-duke cherries on good exposures now ripen, and different kinds of strawberries in the open ground are abundant. These, with early melons, grapes, peaches, nectarines, and pine-apples, continue plentiful till August, when the currant and gooseberry come in. By the middle of August the early pears are ready, and the later houses of peaches,:nectarines, and grapes, are in perfection, with melons ; and by September, the open wall of peach es, apricots, and nectarines, green-gage plums, and jar gonelle pears, with the late preserved gooseberries and currants, and the early jenneting and oslin apples, swell the dessert. In October, late crops of melons and grapes, with peaches, nectarines, and figs, join themselves with the ripening apples and pears; till, towards the end of it, the careful horticulturist gathers and stores the remaining fruits of his labours, that he may possess a supply during the winter season. The autumn pears, such as the benne and the crassane, are in season till the new year ; when the colmart, St Germain, and chattmontel, still prolong the succession of pears: then many varieties of keeping apples present themselves, till the season revolve, when early strawberries, cherries, and melons, may again be procur ed. Several fruits, not generally cultivated, such as
oranges and shaddocks, have not here been enumerated ; and our nuts, such as filberds and walnuts, are intentionally omitted.
The genet-al extent of the walled garden is from two to five acres. It is to be observed, that a walled garden of three or four acres, at the present day, affords as much space for the production of fruits and kitchen vegetables, as did a garden of perhaps five or six acres at the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century, when the gar den was invariably connected with the mansion-house; so that the portion next the house was naturally laid out as a parterre, and large spaces were occupied by arbours, foun tains, and grass-plats for statues or obelisks. A very few only of our modern fine gardens can here be particulariz ed. In all of them, fruits and vegetables are cultivated with great care, and with remarkable success. In most of those to be now specified, besides these more ordinary pro ductions, there are rich collections of curious and orna mental plants.
31. To begin with England. The gardens at Chiswick House, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, near Kew Bridge, are very extensive, and remarkable for containing a most magnificent range of hot-houses. At \Vhite Knights, near Reading, the Marquis of Blandford has a very complete garden, distinguished more especially for a choice collection of ornamental plants. Spring-Grove, near Blackheath, the seat of the illustrious President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, affords a very fair exam ple of a well kept English garden, Here, in the open air, grows a noble specimen of the Chili pine, (Araucaria im bricata,) the most admirable, perhaps, of the many plants discovered and brought home by Mr Archibald Menzies: of this Spring Grove specimen the venerable owner is justly proud. \Vormly Bury, the seat of Sir Abraham Hume, near Enfield, may also be noticed ; it is parti cularly remarkable for its hot-houses being stored with fine specimens of the rarest tender exotics. Other gar dens well deserve notice, such as Lord Tankerville's near Walton ; the Duke of Northumberland's at Syon House, Brentford ; and Earl Mansfield's at Caen Wood, Hampstead.