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FRENCH NURSERIES. 



plump and stout, the Moss may be entirely- 

 removed and the pot raised higher. And 

 very soon that, too, may be quite dispensed 

 with, unless there are frosts at night, or 

 bitter dry easterly winds by day. In the 

 former case, replace the pot every night 

 and take it off again in the morning ; in the 

 latter, it is wise to place a little screen be- 

 tween the plants and the wind. For this 

 purpose a pantile is a capital thing, but a 

 piece of board, or any such matter, will do. 



In this way you secure all that you want 

 in order to get a hardy seed to grow : dark- 

 ness, moisture, air, warmth ; and after- 

 wards moisture, air, light and shelter. 



Let no one say that large seeds cannot 

 thus be raised. The finest Oaks spring 

 from acorns dropped in the forest and cov- 

 ered by a few leaves. The Sycamore, the 



Ash, the Beech, the Horse Chestnut will all 

 sow themselves wherever their seeds can 

 stick to the ground until a coverlet of 

 leaves is moistened by an April shower and 

 warmed by an April sun. Neither have 

 such seeds any difficulty in steadying them- 

 selves by their roots ; a long fang is driven 

 by vital impulse into the earth, and it is to 

 that, and not to a bit of the buried neck of 

 the stem, that the seedling trusts for sup- 

 port and nourishment. 



We will only add one word. Those who 

 have ever attempted to sow seeds upon 

 rockwork, know to their cost how very dif- 

 ficult it is to make such seeds take root. 

 The method now proposed answers the end 

 completely, and it is the only plan, which, 

 in difficult cases, does succeed. Experto 

 crede Roberto. 



NOTES ON FRENCH NURSERIES. 



BY JAS. W. HOOKER, ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



One of the most striking contrasts which 

 one observes on crossing from England to 

 France, between the two countries, is the 

 entirely different styles of planting out trees, 

 shrubs and flowers, which are adopted by 

 the men of these several countries. The 

 English and the French gardener are ope- 

 rating upon two distinct and opposite ideas. 

 The Frenchman endeavors to make things 

 beautiful; the Englishman permits them to 

 become so, by assisting nature to work out 

 her own idea, confidently expecting that the 

 infinite variety of beautiful forms which she 

 assumes will exceed the puny productions 

 of his own fancy as far as the Infinite Mind, 

 from which these forms emanate, exceeds 

 his own in resources. Need I say which 

 has proved himself the most skilful work- 

 man, especially since the world is full of 

 praises to English landscape gardeners ? 



This impression is confirmed at every step 

 that is taken, by the ever-present Lombardy 



poplar, not cultivated solely for " liberty 

 trees," — to which use however a large num- 

 ber have of late been put — but every farm 

 where a tree of any sort is to be seen, must 

 have its poplar, either planted along the 

 boundaries, or set in squares, and grown for 

 timber and fire-wood ; its formal and up- 

 right head, although not uninteresting 

 in due proportion with other trees, gives 

 rather a stiff and monotonous appearance 

 to the landscape, when it alone is to be 

 seen. 



The perfection of this formal style is 

 seen at Versailles, in the palace gardens. 

 There may be found avenues of Elms, Lin- 

 dens, Beeches, Horse-chestnuts &c, clipped 

 in the form of Gothic arches, and stretching 

 as far as the eye can reach in one unbroken 

 wall of green leaves, which constant clip- 

 ping for many years has brought to such a 

 mathematical accuracy as to afford no vari- 

 ety or intricacy — in short, no relief to the 



