AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND RECOLLECTIONS. 



I have been told that I was born on the 2d of Au- 

 gust, 1807, in the old province of France called Bur- 

 gundy, a country noted for her good wine, probably 

 one of the reasons I am more partial to wine than to 

 whisky. 



My father was a gardener and this somewhat accounts 

 for my early love for horticulture. As far as I can rec- 

 ollect I was about eight or ten years old, more or less, 

 when I began to try to grow plants from cuttings. I 

 have always been fond of cutting ! properly and figur- 

 atively speaking, except cutting my fingers ! Besides, 

 I was also very fond of reading books treating of gar- 

 dening operations, especially the nomenclature long 

 names that I learned by heart, as parrots do, without 

 knowing the meaning, which constitutes a poor learn- 

 ing. However, later in life I have found these words 

 very useful. I found that " words lead to the knowl- 

 edge of things." One thing I have never been able to 

 learn is mathematics I mean that lateral branch of 

 it, " arithmetic," the science " par excellence." Even 



