water pipes as means of heating walls. These pipes, when placed within internal cavities, unless they be very numerous, and their sides extremely thin, emit a heat too feeble to produce an appreciable effect on a large surface of wall. The Fruit Garden.-This department is so frequently and so properly united to the kitchen-garden that it scarcely requires a separate notice. The site and soil which suit the one will generally be found appropriate to the other. When orchards are planted apart from the kitchen-gardens, a warm, dry, and sheltered locality should be selected for them. In the more northern or midland districts, the outer sloping banks-but not the level holms-on the sides of rivers, are found to be singularly propitious to the growth of hardy fruit-trees. Orchards, when not very artificially planted, and when furnished with proper accompaniments, may be made to harmonize well with the general scenery of the park and pleasure-grounds. The Forcing Garden.-Fruit and vegetables are said to be forced when their growth is accelerated and their maturity perfected by means of glass and artificial heat. The forcing-garden, then, requires a number of glazed houses or other structures of more or less complicated construction. It is usually mixed up with the kitchengarden, or what is better, partly attached to it in a separate compartment. The vineries, peach-houses, pine-stoves, and occasionally a greenhouse, are commonly placed on the south side of the north wall of the kitchen-garden, while the furnaces, sheds, and other necessary offices оссиру the north side of the same wall. In such cases, when the nature of the ground permits, the pine-pits, melon-pits, and other minor forcing structures, should be arranged in an enclosed space behind the above, but at such a distance as to prevent their being shaded during winter by the buildings in front. This is perhaps the best arrangement, as it keeps the whole forcing-garden together, and enables the work to be more speedily carried on. Where it cannot be so arranged, it should be formed at one end or side of the kitchen-garden, in the position most fitted to facilitate the various necessary operations. A general range of forcing-houses may be formed so as to have an imposing and ornamental effect; but when these are placed in the kitchen-garden, the latter must be so arranged as in some degree to correspond with them. When they are above the character of mere forcing-houses, and particularly when plant-houses form a portion of the range, they should be erected, not in the kitchen-garden, but in some neighbouring portion of the ornamental grounds, such as a small flowergarden or in a section of the lawns. In this way a good transitionary link can be established between the kitchen-gardens and the pleasure-grounds. Care, however, must be taken to prevent the smoking chimneys from becoming offensively visible, and to screen and enclose the necessary sheds and roads leading to them -objects frequently not easy to be secured in detached situations. Our purpose in this volume does not lead us to enter into detailed statements in regard to the erection of forcing or plant-houses, and to the methods of heating them. On these subjects we may refer our readers for information to any of the recent works which treat professedly on horticulture, such as Loudon's 'Encyclopædia of Gardening,' or to the article Horticulture in the Encyclopædia Britannica,' or to the reprint of that article in 'Neill's Gardening.' The latter, which we are permitted by the publishers to say we aided in getting up, particularly the department now referred to, will be found useful by gentlemen acquiring first notions on the subject, as it is almost wholly free from technical details. Since these works were published, the system of roofing glass houses by small glass ridges and furrows has been greatly improved by its inventor Sir Joseph Paxton, and employed in the construction of the Crystal Palace, which but for this method of roofing might never have existed in its universally-admired form. In our practice in this department of gardening, we have found the ridged roof to be admirably adapted to greenhouses, conservatories, and even to the minor structures employed for the rearing of plants. 155 CHAPTER X. PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. SECT. I. The Public Park.-Site of the Public Park.-Laying-out of Public Parks.-Educational Institutions. SECT. II. Street Gardens. SECT. III. Botanic Gardens. - Special Purposes of Botanic Gardens.-Botanical Museum.-Laying-out of the Botanic Gardens. SECT. IV. Gardens belonging to Horticultural and Zoological Societies. Gardens of Horticultural Societies.-Laying-out of Horticultural Gardens.-Horticultural Museum.—Zoological Gardens. SECT. I. THE PUBLIC PARK. PUBLIC parks are large enclosed pieces of ground in the vicinity of cities or towns, partly covered with trees and shrubs, partly consisting of pastures, lawns, and pleasuregrounds, with their usual decorations, and provided with other means and appliances for the recreation and amusement of the inhabitants. We adopt the common title, Public Park, though some recent examples seem to partake as much of the character of the pleasure-ground as of the park. Their utility and importance in social and sanitary points of view are only beginning to be adequately appreciated; and much of the progress which, in these respects, has been made is due to the exertions of the late Mr. Loudon, who, in various articles in the 'Gardeners' Magazine,' was the first to draw public attention to their value. In these papers, conceived in a most benevolent spirit, and expressed with much earnestness of manner, the departed artist laboured to show that, in the public park, the pale mechanic and the exhausted factory operative might inhale the freshening breeze and some portion of recovered health; the busy shopkeeper and the more speculative merchant might enjoy relaxation and bracing exercise in temporary seclusion from their toils and cares; and that the family troop, the children with their nurses, or the sportive juveniles in the company of their staid seniors might take their walk or spend their play-time apart from the bustle of the streets, and secure from the accidents to which, in crowded thoroughfares, they are necessarily exposed. Without doubt, it is also good for the mental health of those who are habituated to the wear and tear of the busy haunts of men to be brought face to face with the tranquillizing as well as suggestive works of God in the world of nature. It is well that all who are capable— and we cannot tell how many these may be should have an opportunity to "reap the harvest of a quiet eye" in scenes which, if not invested with all the wildness of the rural districts, have yet as much of the treasures of vegetable forms and colours as are accessible to the inhabitants of cities without a considerable expense of time and labour. Certainly the resort to such places of recreation is very great. Looking to the metropolitan parks of the United Kingdom, we find all classes of the community, the day-tasked official, the night-worn |