82 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTIAGE GARDENER. 



[ Janoary 25, 1872. 



.'op ii3 obtained without a tithe of the trouble required in tha 

 other case, as less of the richness of the dung is expended than 

 t'lere is by the repeated turnings of the manure. A thatched 

 shed shaded by trees is veiy desirable, but I have seen good 



returns, even in summer, from small ridged beds under the 

 shade of trees. Mushrooms do best between the temperatures 

 of 50° and CO", but without these limits good crops may reason- 

 ably be looked for. — E. F. 



'LES PKOMENADES DE PAEIS." 



In resuming our- notice of M. Alphand's great work we now I well known to those who have visited Paris as being on the 

 come to that portion of it treating of the Bois de Vincennes, | east, as the Bois de Boulogne is on the west side of the city. 



The Bois de Vincennes forms part of what was originally the 

 great forest of Lauchonia, extending from Melun to Paris along 

 the right bank of the Seine. In thi seventh century this was 

 severed into three parts, which are now respectively represented 

 by the Bois de Bondy, the Bois de Livry, and the Bois de 

 Vincennes. This last is said to have been the first forest ever 

 enclosed in walls, and the occasion of its being so was to pre- 

 serve the stags, fallow deer, and roe sent by Henry II. from 

 England to France. 



The history of this, as of most forests near the capital, is 

 that the Sovereign and the Court preserved it as chase or 



hunting-ground. A chateau was built there in the twelfth 

 centm'y, and from that time to the present it has been utilised 

 to the varied requirements of the age and of the Court. It 

 continued in the hands of the French Sovereign till 1792, 

 when it became part of the national property ; but in 1810 it 

 returned to the Sovereign, and after undergoing many changes 

 and vicissitudes it was in 1852 included in the civil list of the 

 Emperor Napolf on III. In 1860 it became the property of the 

 city of Paris, and then were begun those great works which, 

 'under the dh-ection of M. Alphand, have resulted in an illus- 

 'tration of landscape gardening seldom to be met with, and the 



