16, Mushroom-shed, in which the mushrooms are grown in Oldacre's manner. 17, Wood-yard, shaded by three elm trees. 18 18, Calf-pens. 19, Cow-house. 20, Tool-house. 21, Piggeries. 22, 23, 24, places for fattening poultry, on Mowbray's plan, not, as usual, in coops, Between this and 25, is a privy for the head gardener. 25, Place for meat for the pigs, which is passed through a shoot to 26. 26, Two tanks sunk in the ground, covered with hinged flaps, the upper edges of which lap under the plate above, so as to shoot off the rain, for souring the food intended for the pigs. One tank, which is much smaller than the other, is used chiefly for milk and meal for the fattening pigs, and sows with pigs; and the other for the wash and other refuse from the house, for the store pigs, which, with the refuse from the garden, apple-loft, &c., amply supplies the store pigs and sows, without any purchased food, except when they have pigs sucking. The good effect of the fermentation or souring is accounted for by chemists, who have found that it ruptures the ultimate particles of the meal or other food; a subject treated in detail in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, vol. vii. p. 445. According to the doctrine there laid down, the globules of meal, or farinaceous matter of the roots and seeds of plants, lie closely compacted together, within membranes so exquisitely thin and transparent that their texture is scarcely to be discerned with the most powerful microscope. Each farinaceous particle is, therefore, considered as enveloped in a vesicle, which it is necessary to burst, in order to allow the soluble or nutritious part to escape. This bursting is effected by boiling, or other modes of cookery; and also, to a certain extent, by the stomach, when too much food is not taken at a time; but it is also effected by the heat and decomposition produced by fermentation; and hence, fermented food, like food which has been cooked, is more easily digested than uncooked or unfermented food. Plants are nourished by the ultimate particles of manure in the same way that animals are nourished by the ultimate particles of food; and hence fermentation is as essential to the dunghill as cookery is to food. The young gardener, as well as the young farmer, may learn from this the vast importance of fermentation, in preparing the food both for plants and animals. 27, Furnace and boiler, for boiling dogs' meat, heating pitch, &c.: placed in this distant and concealed spot, to prevent risk from fire when pitch or tar is boiled; and, when meat is boiled for dogs, to prevent the smell from reaching the garden. The reason why it is found necessary to have a boiler for tar is, that, most of the farm-buildings and garden-offices being of wood, it is found conducive to their preservation occasionally to coat them with tar heated to its boiling point. 28, Open shed for lumber. 29, Dog-kennel; adjoining which is a privy for the under gardeners. 30, Hay-barn. 31, Lean-to for straw. 32 32, Places for loaded hay-carts to unload, or to remain in when loaded during the night, in order to be ready to cart to town or to market early in the morning. 33, House for lumber, wood, &c. 34, Duck-house. 35 35, Houses for geese and turkeys. 36, Open shed for carts and farm implements. 37, Pond surrounded by rockwork and quince trees. 38, House for a spring-cart. 39, Coal-house for Mr. Pratt. 40 40, Places for young chickens. 41, Yard to chicken-houses. 42, Hatching-house for hens, containing boxes, each 1 ft. square within, with an opening in front 7 in. wide and 7 in. high, the top being arched, so that the sides of the opening are only 5 in. high. 43, Lobby to Mr. Pratt's house. 44, His kitchen. 45, Living-room. 46, Oven opening to 47. 47, Brewhouse, bakehouse, and scullery, containing a copper for brewing, another for the dairy utensils, and a third for washing, besides the oven already mentioned. 48, Dairy. The milk dishes are of white earthenware; zinc having been tried, but having been found not to throw up the cream so speedily and effectively as had been promised. One zinc dish, with handles, is used for clotted cream, which is regularly made during the whole of the fruit season, and occasionally for dinner parties, for preserved tarts, &c. We observed here small tin cases for sending eggs and butter to town. The butter, wrapped in leaves, or a butter cloth, is placed in the bottom of a tin box about a foot square, so as to fill the box completely; and another tin box is placed over it, the inner box resting on a rebate, to prevent its crushing the butter below it. In this latter box, the eggs are packed in bran, after which the cover of the outer one is put on, and the whole may then be sent to any distance by coach. The dairy is supplied with water from a pump in the scullery; the water being conveniently distributed in both places by open tubes and pipes. 49, Coachman's living-room. 50, Coachman's kitchen, and stairs to two bedrooms over. 51, Court for inclosing the coachman's children. 52, Lobby to the dairy. 53, Lobby to Mr. Pratt's brew-house. 54, Cellar. 55, Chicken-yard. 56, Farmer's yard. 57, A gravelled court separating the court-yard, 59, from the stable-yard, 56. 58, Place for slaughtering in. 59, Stable-yard. 60, Shed for compost, and various other garden materials; such as a tub for liquid manure, in which it ferments and forms a scum on the top, while the liquid is drawn off below by a faucet with a screw spigot, such as is common in Derbyshire and other parts of the north, which admits the water to come out through the under side of the faucet. Here are also kept paint pots, oil cans, boxes, baskets, and a variety of other matters. The whole of this shed is kept warm by the heat which escapes from the fire-place in 61, and from the back of the orchidaceous house, 4. 61, Fire-place and boiler for heating the orchidaceous house. 62, Place for arranging garden pots. 63, Shed, with roof of patent slates, which becomes a cheap mode of roofing in consequence of requiring so few rafters, amply lighted from the roof, and kept warm in the winter time by the heat proceeding from the boilers at 61 and 64. This shed contains a potting-bench, cistern of water, and compartments for mould; and, being lofty, it contains in the upper part two apartments inclosed by wirework, for curious foreign pigeons or other birds. On the ground are set, during the winter season, the large agaves and other succulent plants which are then in a dormant state, and which are kept in the open garden during summer. On the whole, this is an exceedingly convenient working shed; being central to the houses 3, 4, 5, and 6; being kept comfortably warm by the boilers; being well lighted from the roof; and having the two windows indicated at 62, before which is the potting-bench. 64, Fire-place to the conservatory and camellia-house. 65, Place for keeping food for the rabbits and pigeons, with stairs to the pigeon-house, which is placed over it. 66, Rabbit-house containing twenty-one hutches, each of which is a cubic box of 20 in. on the side. Each box is in two divisions, an eating-place and a sleeping-place; the sleeping-place is 8 in. wide, and is entered by an opening in the back part of the partition. Both divisions have an outer door in front; and, in order that the door of the sleeping-place may not be opened by any stranger, it is fastened by an iron pin, which cannot be seen or touched till the door of the eating-place is opened. Mr. Pratt pointed this out to us as an improvement in the construction of rabbit-hutches, well deserving of imitation wherever there is any chance of boys or idle persons getting into the rabbit-house. The rabbits are fed on garden vegetables and bran, barley, oatmeal, and hay, making frequent changes; the vegetables being gathered three or four days before being used, and laid in a heap to sweat, in order to deprive them of a portion of their moisture. Salt is also given occasionally with the bran. Cleanliness, and frequent change of food, have now, for five years, kept the rabbits in constant health. It ought never to be forgotten, that attention to the above rules, in partially drying green succulent vegetables, is essential to the thriving of rabbits kept in hutches; and, hence, in London and other large towns, instead of fresh vegetables, they are fed with clover hay. One of the kinds of rabbit bred at Mr. Harrison's is the hare rabbit, mentioned in the Encyclop�dia of Agriculture, � 7355, the flesh of which resembles that of the hare in quantity and flavor. Mr. Pratt has fed rabbits here, which, when killed, weighed 11 lbs. We can testify to their excellence when cooked. 67, Coach-house, with stairs to hay-loft. 68, Stable. 69, Mill-house, containing mills for bruising corn for poultry, a portable flour mill, a lathe, and grinding-machine for sharpening garden instruments and similar articles. In the Angel Inn in Oxford, some years ago, a lathe of this sort was used for cleaning shoes, the brushes being fixed to the circumference of the wheel, and the shoes applied to them, while the wheel was turned round by a tread lever, or treadle. 70, Root-house, containing binns for keeping different kinds of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, beets, and yellow, French, and white turnips, with shelves for onions; and a loft over, which is used as a fruit room. The fruit is kept partly on shelves, and partly on cupboard trays. 71, Store place for beer or ale, which is brewed by Mr. Pratt for the use of the family in London, as well as Cheshunt; here is also a regular staircase to the fruit-room. 72, Harness-room, properly fitted up with every convenience, and warmed by a stove. 73, A lobby or court to a door which opens to the brook, for the purpose of clearing out an excavation made in the bottom of the channel, in order to intercept mud, and thus render the water quite clear where it passes along the pleasure-ground, and is seen from the library window and the grand walk (Fig. 5, p. 492). The whole of any mud which may collect in the brook may be wheeled up a plank through this door without dirtying the walk. 74 74, The brook. 75, Foot entrance to Mr. Pratt's house, the coachman's house, the dairy, etc. 76, Carriage entrance to the stable-court, garden offices, farm-yard, etc. 77, Private entrance to the garden, over the rustic bridge shown in Fig. 5. 78, Masses of vitrified bricks and blocks of stone, distributed among lawn and shrubs; among which, large plants of agave, and other rock exotics, are placed in the summer season, the pots and tubs being concealed by covering them with the stones forming the masses of rock-work. Here the semicircular space surrounded by rock contains a collection of Himalayan rhododendrons, etc., in pots, many of them seedlings which have not yet flowered. 79 79, American shrubbery, consisting chiefly of rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias, etc., growing in the peat earth kept moist by the brook. 80, American garden consisting of choice American shrubs, and American herbaceous plants. In the centre of the circle a handsome tazza vase on a bold pedestal. 81, Two semicircles for dahlias; the surrounding compartments containing a collection of roses. 82, Garden of florist's flowers. 83 83, Garden of herbaceous plants, chiefly annuals. The walks in all these gardens are edged with slate. The bed 83** contains a collection of choice standard roses. 84, Dahlias. 85, Double ascent of the steps to a mound formed of the earth removed in excavating for the pond. From the platform to which these steps lead, there is a circuitous path to the Chinese temple; and the steps are ornamented with Chinese vases, thus affording a note of preparation for the Chinese temple. The outer sides of the steps are formed of rockwork, and between the two stairs is a pedestal with Chinese ornaments. 86, The Chinese temple, on the highest part of the mount formed of the soil taken from the excavation now constituting the pond. The view from the interior of this temple is shown in Fig. 9, p. 504. 87, Rustic steps descending from the Chinese temple to the walk which borders the pond. 88, The pond. 89, Open tent, with sheet-iron roof supported by iron rods. This structure may be seen in the view Fig. 10. 90 90, Masses of evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs. 91, Grotto, made late last year, not yet completed. It was formerly an outer ice-house, but it failed as such. The entrance is surrounded by rockwork, and the interior in the form of a horseshoe, furnished with a wooden bench as a seat. Over this grotto, is an umbrella tent, as shown in the view Fig. 11. 92, Dahlias. 93, Slip of ground for compost, and various other materials requisite for the garden and farm-yard; communicating with the frame-ground by the door 94, with the farm-yard by the gate 95, and with the farm by the gate 96. 94, Door from the frame-ground to the slip behind. 95, Gate from the slip to the farmyard. 96, A gate from the slip to the fields of the farm. 97, Grass field, forming part of the farm.
