108 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
gently explores the sea-coast. It may, however, be worth 
remarking, that in this distance, of comparatively a few miles, 
we came to six, I believe indeed seven, towns where there were 
public Botanic gardens, kept up at the public expense. At 
Rouen, they have, within the last two years, taken a large piece 
of ground in the Fauxbourg St. Sever, planted the école or col- 
lection of plants, arranged botanically, and are preparing. 
build houses, &c. In the garden of Caen I was disappointe 
-I had been told it was one of the best, and found it the worst 
kept, the most erroneously named and poorest collection of 
all. I did not see that at Rennes: the garden at Nantes is 
chiefly remarkable for its fine avenue of Magnolias; and my 
time at Rochelle was so short that I did not even ascertain 
if there was an institution of the kind in the place. 
Botanic garden of Rochefort adjoins a noble public walk 
called the jardin public, and contains a very good collectiot 
in excellent order, and with some fine specimens. At Bor- 
deaux, the Linnean Society of which is well known, the 
garden is extensive and rich, especially in trees. The 
respective magnitude and value of these establishments depen 
of course on the size of the town to which they belong, and 
the manner in whieh the general plan is worked out; but 
they are invariably considered needful where medical edu- 
cation is carried on to any extent, and of material servic 
an agricultural and economical (to use the latter word 
the French sense) point of view, independently of mere horti- 
culture which is now much better appreciated in France than 
it used tobe. These gardens are all more or less laid out on 
the same plan.: Each has an école, containing the arr: 
collection, distributed into natural orders, and where is als 
placed, in summer, a specimen of each of the greenhouse 
plants they may possess; a medical collection, containing 
medicinal plants; often a collection of agricultural plants, and 
oue of plantes économiques, that is of such vegetables as are 
“useful for purposes not strictly medical, nor yet agricultural 
sometimes also there is a separate Arboretum. In all of tl 
lectures are given during spring and. summer, either 
