Dalkeith Palace; the Duke of Buccleugh. As we had not time to see this place properly, we shall say little about it. There is an excellent kitchen-garden, newly formed; but the walls, in our opinion, are altogether deficient in architectural dignity. We would have had rich Elizabethan gateways and doorways, an architectural coping, and various other details, which, without interfering in any way with culture, would have lent dignity and character to what, speaking always with reference to architectural design, is mean and commonplace. We were the more surprised at this, because, from Mr. M'Intosh's remarks on the "entrance to the kitchen or culinary garden," in his New and Improved Practical Gardener, p. 27., we were led to expect something very different. The chimneys are not, as usual, carried up in the back wall, but very judiciously behind in the outer or lower wall of the back sheds, in order to prevent the soot, which the coal here produces in immense quantities, from dropping on the glass. As far as we recollect, there was not a pond in the centre of the garden, which is always desirable, in order that the water in summer may be warmed by the sun, to the same temperature as the soil. The great importance of this has been admirably pointed out in our Volume for 1840, and will be recurred to in a future page of this article. The crops, both in the open garden and in the forcing-houses, were excellent, and the order and keeping unexceptionable. The design of the flower-garden to the south of the kitchen-garden will, no doubt, be reconsidered.
