52 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



larged liis views. Hence he becomes a more scientific artisan than the Frenchman, and is 

 in more general demand in other countries. Some of the best gardens in Poland, Russia, 

 and Italy, are under the care of Germans. 



239. The Germans have produced few original authors on gardening, and none that can 

 be compared to Quintinye or Miller. They have translations of all the best European 

 books ; and so vigilant are they in this respect, that even a recent and most useful work on 

 exotic gardening, by Cushing, hardly known in England, has not escaped the Leipsic 

 book-makers. Hirschfield has compiled a number of works, chiefly on landscape-gar- 

 dening ; J. V. Sickler and Counsellor Diel have written extensively on most departments 

 of horticulture, especially on the hardy fruits. (Sulzers Theory of the Fine Arts ; 

 Ersches Handbuchy&c. 2 Band. 1 Abth.) 



Sect. V. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of Gardening in Switzerland. 



240. Extensive gardens are not to be expected in a country of comparative equalisation 

 of property, like Switzerland ; but no where are gardens more profitably managed or more 

 neatly kept, than in that country. " Nature," Hirschfield observes, " has been liberal to 

 the inhabitants of Switzerland, and they have wisely profited from it. Almost all the 

 gardens are theatres of true beauty, without vain ornaments or artificial decorations. 

 Convenience, not magnificence, reigns in the country-houses ; and the villas are distin- 

 guished more by their romantic and picturesque situations, than by their architecture." 

 He mentions several gardens near Geneva and Lausanne ; Delices is chiefly remarkable 

 because it was inhabited by Voltaire before he purchased Ferney, and La Grange and 

 La Boissier are to this day well known places. Ferney is still eagerly visited by every 

 stranger, but with the chateau of the Neckar family, that of the Empress Josephine, of 

 Beauharnois, and others, eulogised in the local guides, pre- 

 sent nothing in the way of our art particularly deserving of 

 notice ; though their situations, looking down on so mag- 

 nificent a lake, the simplicity of their architecture, and the 

 romantic scenery by which they are surrounded, render 

 them delightful retirements, and such as but few countries 

 can boast. The villa-gardens excel in rustic buildings 

 (fig. 17.) and arbors ; and are, for the most part, a mixture 

 of orchards on hilly surfaces, cultivated spots, and rocks. 

 However insignificant such grounds may look on paper 

 {fig. 1 8. ), in the reality they are pleasing and romantic. The public promenades at 

 Berne are most beautiful, and kept with all the care of an English flower-garden. Swit- 

 zerland has the pecu- 

 liar advantage of pro- 

 ducing a close turf, 

 which in most places, 

 and particularly at 

 Lausanne and Berne, 

 is as verdant as in 

 England. Harte 

 says great part of the 

 Pays de Vaud is like 

 the best part of Berk- 

 shire ; and indeed 

 every one feels that 

 this is the country 

 most congenial to an 

 Englishman's taste 

 and feelings. 



241. The first botanic garden which appeared in Sivitzerland was that of the celebrated 

 Conrad Gesner, at Zurich, founded before the middle of the sixteenth century. He had 

 not, Deleuze observes, sufficient fortune to obtain much ground, or to maintain many 

 gardeners ; but his activity supplied every thing, and he assembled in a small spot what 

 he had been able to procure by his numerous travels and extensive correspondence. Public 

 gardens were, in the end of this century, established at Geneva, Basil, and Berne, and 

 subsequently in most of the cantons. The first of these gardens at present is that of 

 Geneva, lately enlarged and newly arranged under the direction of that active and highly 

 valued botanist, Decandolle. The garden of Basil is rich in the plants of all the moun- 

 tainous regions which lie around it, including the Tyrol and Piedmont. A taste for 

 flowers is perhaps more popular in Switzerland than in Germany ; for though frugality is 

 not less an object in every branch of rural economy, yet real independence is more gene- 



