1885.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



3" 



den of the Tuilleries. Oranges of over a hundred 

 years old in tubs, Una the promenades. There 

 are probably loooof them. The stems are about i8 

 inches in circumference, and the trees are shaved 

 into exact globes about 4 or 5 feet thick. Immortelle 

 flowers are much used, and freely, to wreath the 

 statuary on festival days. The flower beds are so 

 thickly planted that it is a wonder how so many 

 kinds can be made to grow thickly and harmon- 

 iously together. In the lake are two black swans, of 

 which I have often read but never saw before. Part 

 of the garden is set apart for nurses and children, 

 where they gambol and play to their hearts' con- 

 tent, and crowds of children flock round and en- 

 joy the Punch and Judy shows. Gentlemen sit in 

 other parts and read their papers, while near by 

 under the shade of the sycamores, ladies join in 

 exploring the interior of lunch baskets. The 

 Chamber of Deputies, hospitals and asylums here, 

 grand, not only in their majestic architecture, but 

 also in their wonderfully long French names, all 

 cluster hereabouts, with the Cathedral of Notre 

 Dame, in which lie the remains of Saint Denis, 

 whom every good Parisian glories in as his patron 

 Saint. Passing by the Obelisk covered with in- 

 scriptions in ancient Egyptian, which I had not 

 time to stop and read, I made for the pretty gar- 

 den spots in the Elysian Fields, or, if we must be 

 French when in France, let us say Champs 

 Elysees. An avenue a mile or so long, crowded 

 with carriages, if crowd is a fair name for the jam 

 of carriages, and with wide strips of park garden- 

 ing'on each side. The Parisian, however, never 

 loses sight in his gardening of plenty of play 

 ground, and it is surely here. All sorts of char- 

 acters perambulate these public garden tracts ; one 

 of the most curious was an old man with a sort of 

 bag of iced drinks over his shoulder, and a faucet 

 under his arm from which he would fill your cups 

 as you pass along. Parties play cards on tables 

 so long as there is no appearance of gambling go- 

 ing on ; and there is the conjurer with his tricks to 

 amuse the young ones. Beds of low shubbery, 

 such as Rhododendrons and Spireass, with flowers 

 everywhere intermixed are everywhere in this 

 public pleasure garden and play ground, and 

 though millions on millions must crowd here con- 

 tinually, are rarely injured. The floral mixtures 

 seem very strange and novel. Here is a clump 

 of our American Kalmia latifolia with scarlet 

 Geraniums mixed through them. Deodar Cedars 

 and Ageratums, Fuchsia fulgens under dwarf 

 Weeping Willows, Arabia Sieboldii with Clarkia 

 pulchella, and so on. 



Then again special features would be had by 

 using all Japan Maples, Euonymuses, or Retinos- 

 poras, and contrast the whole with Begonias and 

 such flowering things among them. Curious efiects 

 by mixing were had with our mammoth Sequoia, 

 Oleanders, Magnolia grandiflora, mixed up with 

 Marguerites and such like. Gypsophyllum is 

 largely used for edging, as also is the lovely sun- 

 worshipping flower, Gazania splendens. But they 

 cannot begin to come up to the well-kept lawns of 

 the United States^ — though I be burned as a heretic 

 I will say it — nor will they ever till they knock 

 their old scythes into ploughshares, and send to 

 Philadelphia for a cargo of lawn mowers. And 

 yet they are ahead of us in some thing?. You 

 won't catch them sprinkling streets by a clumsy, 

 ugly, filthy concern called a water cart, but a 

 neatly dressed man has a system of light riveted 

 hose on a pair of wheels which he leads around 

 and sprinkles at a tithe of the cost for watering 

 that your old lumbering horse water barrel does. 

 From the top of the grand triumphal arch — or, if 

 we must. Arc de Triomphe, you may see all Paris ; 

 but to a lover of neatness and order few things 

 will be more pleasurable than the clean asphalt 

 walks everywhere around. Twelve of these beau- 

 tiful avenues centre here. You rush for an omni- 

 bus to get to your railroad station, but the law 

 allows only twenty-four in and twenty-four out, 

 and you must await your turn till an empty seat 

 comes along. It is a happy thought for the fellow 

 inside that you have plenty of room without an- 

 other to crowd on you ; but for the poor wretch 

 on the street who knows he has but five minutes 

 to make his train and may be fifteen before that 

 empty seat comes along, the idea has more of the 

 thorns of the rose than of its beauty and fragrance. 



You may comfort yourself, however, if so dis- 

 posed, while waiting, by investing forty American 

 cents in a bottle of good wine. At length we get 

 the omnibus, and as we ride back the way we came, 

 still wonder at the clean streets, the simple method 

 of sprinkling, the iron gratings around the side- 

 walk trees, and the beauty everywhere, till reaching 

 the Place de la Madeleine and seeing the whole 

 square one large flower market, we leave the om- 

 nibus to enjoy the pots, and sights of buyers and 

 sellers around them. It is enough to make one 

 look as if asked to swallow the Washington 

 Monument! I never saw such a quantity of pot 

 flowers together before. Palms of numerous 

 species, with the dwarf and curious trees and 

 shrubs, such as Eucalyptus and Myrtles, Yuccas 

 and Amaryllis, no end of Roses, with of 



