The house at Streatham, though surrounded by forty acres of grass-land, is not a farm, but a villa in a garden; for I never have admitted the word ferme orne into my ideas of taste, any more than a butcher's shop, or a pigsty, adorned with pea-green and gilding. A garden is of different value in different seasons, and should be adapted to each. In SUMMER, when every field in the country is a garden, we seldom enjoy that within our own paling, except in its produce; but near London, where the views from public roads are all injured by the pales and belts of private property, the interior becomes more valuable, and the pleasure of gathering summer fruit should be consulted in the arrangement of the gardens. In WINTER the garden is only preferable to a field by a broad gravel-walk, from which the snow is swept, except we add to its luxury the comfort of such glass as may set the winter at defiance; and the advantage of such forcing-houses for vines and flowers will be doubly felt in the neighbourhood of the capital.
