Foreign Notices : — France. Sol 



simple and unexpensive, there is very little distress experienced by any one, 

 and consequently very tew crimes committed. The English style ot gar- 

 dening has made less progress in a district of country in many respects 

 analogous to our own, than might perhaps have been expected, especially 

 when its former connection with England, and the constant intercourse 

 which then must have taken place, is considered. The raised terraces and 

 straight walks, with other formalities now commonly discarded in England, 

 are generally retained about the French chateaus. There is a forest resi- 

 dence of Marshal Grouchy, situated in the Ardennes Forest, in a more 

 natural style; and M. de Conterne obligingly showed us walks in his 

 magnificent woods ; and over and along the beautiful stream running 

 through them, which would do no discredit to the taste of an English land- 

 scape-gardener. Wherever it can be consistently indulged, this style seems 

 to be greatly on the increase in different parts of France ; and, besides 

 various other instances in addition to those already mentioned in your 

 Magazine, the garden of the Minimes at Tours, and the grounds of Les 

 Ornes, on the banks of the river Vienne, the seat of M. d'Argenson, in 

 Poitu, are favourable specimens. From BagnoUes to Domfront, and 

 thence by Conde to Falaise, the country is highly interesting. This latter 

 place, we were repeatedly told, with something more of complacency than 

 we heard it, was the birthplace of William the Conqueror. Its immediate 

 vicinity is picturesque and beautiful ; and before reaching Domfront (as 

 between Falaise and Caen), 1 found the most magnificent crops of wheat, 

 growing in a woodcock-coloured loam, on a broken oolitic subsoil, that I ever 

 remember to have seen. From Caen (one quarter, and some of the outskirts 

 of which city are very handsome) all the way to Honfleur the country is 

 delightful, with very little exception ; it is every where enclosed, and though 

 not highly is yet tolerably well cultivated. In the hedges by the roadside, 

 acacias in great numbers exhibited their delicately white pendulous blos- 

 soms, and diffused their fragrance in great profusion. In the neighbourhood 

 of Honfleur (which is situated nearly opposite to Havre at the mouth of 

 the Seine, where it is seven or eight miles broad) there are many gardens 

 in the English style, partaking largely of the superiority of the best Eng- 

 lish cultivation ; but this district is chiefly famed for the production of 

 melons, superior sorts of which are cultivated on a large scale in enclosures 

 of the size of small fields, for the supply of Paris, to which city they are 

 sent in vast quantities. Great part of the department of L'Orne, and the 

 whole of Calvados, of which Caen is the chief place, are celebrated for 

 their apples and pears ; and, in favourable seasons, immense quantities of 

 cider and perry are made, which, as in Herefordshire and Devonshire, con- 

 stitute a great proportion of the drink of the country, besides supplying the 

 neighbouring departments with the superior kinds. The vegetable produc- 

 tions of Calvados are similar to those of L'Orne, with the addition of tur- 

 nips, mangold wurzel, &c., all of which might be cultivated to advantage in 

 the latter department. Landed property is there also much divided ; the 

 country looks cheerful, and the people want nothing to enable them to 

 develope, in common with the rest of France, the immense resources of 

 their country, but the natural unsophisticated operation of the genuine 

 principles of the Revolution, through the medium of a free and cheap go- 

 vernment, in the extension of education, the total abolition of remaining 

 monopolies, the unrestrained freedom of personal intercourse, and a really 

 free press. — John H. Moggridge. Woodfieldy Dec. 183L 



Destruction of the Ajyple Bug, and of Lichens on Fruit Trees, hy Fire. — » 

 Sii-, The Royal Society of Agriculture at Caen, in Normandy, proposed a 

 prize for an essay on the best mode of destroying the " Puceron lanigere." * 



* A new genus has been established, called Myzoxylus; from myzo^ to 

 suck, and xylon, wood. 



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