for the chymists for melting iron.  A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any thing else.  Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner; nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, 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; I may have that.’  JOHNSON.  ’A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take care of it.’  BOSWELL.  ‘But if I have a gardener at any rate?—­’ JOHNSON.  ‘Why, yes.’  BOSWELL.’  I’d have it near my house; there is no need to have it in the orchard.’  JOHNSON.  ’Yes, I’d have it near my house.  I would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a pretty sweetmeat.’