on, yet
it would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt.' BOSWELL. 'Do
you know, Sir, I have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of
what you only piddle at,--scraping and drying the peel of oranges[636].
At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared,
which they sell to the distillers.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I believe they make a
higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called
orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhaps
with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in
the drying.'

BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think
it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wall
at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as
much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap.
Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four
square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have
eighty-four square yards[637], which is very well. But when will you get
the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No,
Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an
orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My
friend, Dr. Madden[638], of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard there
should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and
enough to rot upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you may
have them; and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'We
cannot have nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils
than you can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they are
very bad.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew
that you _cannot_ have it. From ground that would let for forty
shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only
forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown
up; you cannot while they are young.' BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden a
very common thing in England, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, as
you imagine[639]. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in
Staffordshire very little fruit.' BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from the
general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has
it.' BOSWELL. 'A hot-house is a certain thing