THE ELM. 101 



of the most remarkable is that mentioned by Gaspar 

 BarUeus, as having- been effected by Count Maurice 

 of Nassau, when he was governor of Brazil, in 1636. 

 Like most Dutch colonists (for Brazil was then a 

 Dutcli colony), Count Maurice fixed his abode on 

 the shore, or rather upon an island, at the confluence 

 of tw(i rivers. The place was naturally as naked as 

 Holland itself, but the taste and spirit of the Count 

 soon erected a palace, and surrounded it by a garden 

 of the most extensive and luxuriant character. Pine- 

 apples, citrons, and oranges were quickly found in 

 abiuidance, and more than seven hundred cocoa-nut 

 trees, some of them fifty feet in height, were trans- 

 planted. These trees were seventy or eighty years 

 old, and they had to be carried four miles, partly on 

 wheel-carriages by land, and partly on rafts by water ; 

 but skill and perseverance overcame every difficulty, 

 and this magnificent artificial forest flourished, and 

 bore abundance of fruit the very first season. That, 

 however, was to be expected ; for if a large fruit-tree 

 which is transplanted lives, it always at least forms 

 fruit the first year, although it may not bear again 

 for several years after. 



About the middle of the seventeenth century, there 

 were some operations of a similar kind in Europe. 

 The Elector Palatine removed some large lime-trees 

 from the forest of Heidelberg to a slope in sight of 

 his palace. These were removed at midsummer, 

 when in the full strength of vegetation, and the heads 

 of them all were cut down ; but there are, probably, 

 few trees, except the lime, that could bear to be so 

 treated. About the same time, M. de Fiat, a French 

 Mareshal, removed, as Evelyn says, " huge oaks," 

 at the Chateau de Fiat; and, on the same autho- 

 rity, we are told that " a great person in Devon 

 planted oaks as big as twelve oxen could draw, to 

 supply some defects in an avenue to his house ;" and 



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