1878.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



157 



ished and put in order. In such a small place all 

 the room possible is required, hence very little 

 planting had to be indulged in, and the effect is 

 obtained by very thick masses of shrubs, judi- 

 ciously placed. They have, of course, an advan- 

 tage in this sort of work over us in the 

 kind of plants they can use. These masess were 

 of Aucubas, Hollies, Privet, Euonymus, Yews 

 and similar things which are not suitable to our 

 gardens, and we have no substitutes. The most 

 common trees in the little park were the Plane 

 and the false Phxne or Sycamore Maple, Horse 

 Chestnuts, and I was pleased to note a very 

 pretty specimen of our own Kentucky Coffee-tree 

 — pleased because our American trees are aston- 

 ishingly rare in these foreign countries. I will 

 digress a little here to say that there is a great 

 exception to this in the Yellow Locust or "Aca- 

 cia," as they call it here. It is all over France, 

 and grows with a luxuriance and blooms with a 

 heauty we never see in our own land. It was a 

 new instance of a fact not new, that nature does 

 not arrange things over the earth for their own 

 good so far as vigorous growth may be to their 

 good, though it is, doubtless, to the ultimate 

 good of these respective races, that they grow 

 where they are found. 



The leading streets of Paris are in a measure 

 public gardens, by the care taken of their 

 street trees. That is to say in their leading or 

 wide streets, known as Boulevards. These trees 

 are generally the Plane or Sycamore, or But- 

 tonwood, as our people would say. They are 

 set three feet from the curb, which prevents 

 destruction by horses. The pavements are of 

 broad flag stones, under which trees vrould not 

 grow in ordinary cases ; but here they have a 

 circle of six feet wide exposed around each tree, 

 but covered with an iron grating, so that the 

 rain can get in, and the roots come up to have 

 the advantage of the air. Men are employed to 

 water the trees durijag the Summer season, 

 small hose on wheels are drawn about and the 

 nozzle applied to the circle at evening when the 

 trees are watered. I was told in Paris that it 

 cost the city about $16 a tree a year to look after 

 them. It seemed to me agreat price, and I still do 

 not think my informant can have had the figures 

 right ; but they certainly do cost something, and 

 deservedly so, for these streets would be nothing 

 without them, and I am sure the Parisians would 

 not lose them for double the cost. We 

 have heard a great deal about the wonderfully 

 large trees they move in Paris, and the delicate 



machinery used in the operations. I took the 

 trouble to hunt up some of these famous illus- 

 trations and found they were, as a rule, not half 

 the size of the large trees which are continually 

 being moved about Germantown, and perhaps 

 near large American cities generally, at not a 

 tithe of the expense, and I was forced to the 

 conclusion, that though in a great many old arts 

 in gardening we are a long way behind the 

 French, in the art of moving large trees, thej 

 might take good lessens from us instead of our 

 learning from them. 



In the gardens of the Tuileries a large number 

 of these trees had been moved last year, and 

 the expense of the machinery was heavy. A 

 gardener told me the cost was near 200 francs 

 per tree or about S40 of our money, which would 

 be heavy even for us. I sought out the largest, 

 which was only twenty- four inches round, most 

 of them only fifteen inches. These were chiefly 

 of Horsechestnut and Elm trees, not at all hard 

 to transplant, and men were then in the early 

 part of July daily watering them. The Elms 

 of the public parks of Chicago, moved under Mr. 

 Cleveland's direction, would astonish the French 

 gardeners. The gardens of the Tuileries were 

 not up to the idea I had formed of them. The 

 most striking feature, and this in contrast with 

 English, and still more American gardening, 

 was the great number of men employed in doing 

 a very little work. The flower beds are fre- 

 quently watered, and this, of course, cakes the 

 ground a little. Early in the morning, before the 

 watering, men are employed cracking the ground 

 with finger and thumb, breaking up the surface. 

 Around the grounds are huge orange trees in 

 tubs, brought annually from Versailles, and two 

 men to a tree were employed in pruning and 

 picking the leaves so that one tree did not extend 

 an inch more out of line than another. Under 

 this pruning and pinching system the gardener in 

 charge informed me they never bore fruit, 

 plenty of flowers being the only aim. They 

 were then being syringed with tobacco water, to 

 keep down insects. It shows that even in these 

 favored regions, as we suppose, it is only hard 

 labor that keeps down insects and disease. 



The Luxembourg Palace gardens are, on the 

 whole, more interesting than those of the Tuil- 

 eries. Sunk gardens, grass, and box-edging are 

 brought into good company with architeetural 

 ornaments, which abound. Our Virginian creeper 

 is more used in these gardens than I have seen 

 anywhere. In some cases it is led from tree to 



