The ground occupied by Mr. Harrison's cottage and gardens is about seven acres, exclusive of two adjoining grass fields. The grounds lie entirely on one side of the house, as shown in the plan, fig. 165. in p. 656, 657. The surface of the whole is flat, and nothing is seen in the horizon in any direction but distant trees. The beauties of the place, to a stranger at his first glance, appear of the quiet and melancholy kind, as shown in the figs. 155, 156.; the one looking to the right from the drawingroom window, and the other to the left: but, upon a nearer examination by a person conversant with the subjects of botany and gardening, and knowing in what rural comfort consists, these views will be found to be full of intense interest, and to afford many instructive hints to the possessors of suburban villas or cottages. In building the house and laying out the grounds, Mr. Harrison was his own architect and landscape-gardener; not only devising the general design, but furnishing working-drawings of all the details of the interior of the cottage. His reason for fixing on the present stituation for the house was, the vicinity (the grounds joining) of a house and walk belonging to a relation of his late wife. This circumstance is mentioned as accounting in one so fond of a garden, for fixing on a spot which had neither tree nor shrub in it when he first inhabited it. Mr. Harrison informs us, and we record it for the use of amateurs commencing, or extending, or improving gardens, that he commenced his operations about thirty years ago, by purchasing, at a large nursery sale, large lots of evergreens, not 6 in. high, in beds of one hundred each, such as laurels, Portugal laurels, laurustinuses, bays, hollies, &c.; with many lots of deciduous trees, in smaller numbers, which he planted in a nursery on his own ground; and at intervals, as he from time to time extended his garden, he took out every second plant, which, with occasional particular trees and shrubs from nursery grounds, constituted a continual supply for improvement and extension. This, with the hospital ground mentioned hereafter, furnished the means of extensions and improvements at no other expense than labour, which, when completed, gave the place the appearance of an old garden; the plants being larger than could be obtained, or, if obtained, safely transplanted, from nurseries. This is an important consideration, in addition to that of economy, well worth the attention of amateur improvers of grounds or gardens.
