A well exposed gravel or brick walk should be
laid down on all sides of the house, as a necessary safeguard against
both moisture and vermin.
I have spoken already of the unrivalled beauty of English gravel. It
cannot be too much admired. _Kunkur_[120] looks extremely smart for a
few weeks while it preserves its solidity and freshness, but it is
rapidly ground into powder under carriage wheels or blackened by
occasional rain and the permanent moisture of low grounds when only
partially exposed to the sun and air. Why should not an opulent Rajah or
Nawaub send for a cargo of beautiful red gravel from the gravel pits at
Kensington? Any English House of Agency here would obtain it for him. It
would be cheap in the end, for it lasts at least five times as long as
the kunkur, and if of a proper depth admits of repeated turnings with
the spade, looking on every turn almost as fresh as the day on which it
was first laid down.
Instead of brick-bat edgings, the wealthy Oriental nobleman might trim
all his flower-borders with the green box-plant of England, which would
flourish I suppose in this climate or in any other. Cobbett in his
_English Gardener_ speaks with so much enthusiasm and so much to the
purpose on the subject of box as an edging, that I must here repeat his
eulogium on it.
The box is at once the most efficient of all possible things, and the
prettiest plant that can possibly be conceived; the color of its leaf;
the form of its leaf; its docility as to height, width and shape; the
compactness of its little branches; its great durability as a plant; its
thriving in all sorts of soils and in all sorts of aspects; _its
freshness under the hottest sun_, and its defiance of all shade and
drip: these are the beauties and qualities which, for ages upon ages,
have marked it out as the chosen plant for this very important purpose.
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