Rouen. 371 



of present pain and labour, being productive of future enjoy- 

 ment, will apply to the whole of life ; for what are the 

 recollections of a tour without incident, or what is the feeling 

 of pleasure to those who have never felt pain ? 



Rouen, Sept. 2. — Mr. Calvert, the English nurseryman here, 

 who crossed with us to Dieppe, kindly anticipating our wishes, 

 sent his foreman Henderson to show us the gardens of the 

 town. This Henderson is a young Scotsman who has been 

 upwards of two years in Rouen, has acquired the language 

 grammatically, and by teaching in Sunday schools, good 

 conduct, and decent manners and dress, has, though only a 

 journeyman gardener, rendered himself I'espected by every 

 body. Professionally he is an excellent propagator of roses, 

 oranges, and green-house plants, and is duly valued by his 

 master. 



Berquier's Marl-cf-Garde7i\s at the head of its class, and was 

 the first we looked into. Its proprietor is a middle-sized, 

 toil-worn, though still a strong, man, eighty-seven years of 

 age, with red sore eyes, a thing common in France among old 

 men, and without teeth ; he has a stout wife of thirty-five. 

 Their clothing was very coarse, they had on sabots, and were 

 both at work in the garden. M. Berquier told us that he 

 had one garden, on a dry slope to the south-east, for early 

 crops ; and another on the flat ground close to the river, for 

 main crops. The only vegetable which appeared to us grown 

 to greater perfection in his gardens, and in others here, than 

 we ever saw it in England, was the leek. After every enquiry 

 we could find nothing peculiar in the mode of culture, and 

 conclude the size and excellence of this vegetable at Rouen to 

 arise chiefly from the climate. They are planted at different 

 seasons to produce a succession of crops throughout the year, 

 and their principal use is in soups. We were promised some 

 seed by M. Berquier, but it was not sent, very probably from 

 fear or suspicion; for he was continually wondering at, and 

 trying to guess, the motives which could induce us to be so par- 

 ticular in our enquiries, and for that reason and the difficulty of 

 comprehending his patois, we derived no great benefit from 

 our visit. The crops on the ground were, cauliflowers, 

 cabbages, turnips, carrots, parsneps, leeks, peas, running 

 kidneybeans in different stages of progress, artichokes, aspa- 

 ragus ; mammoth gourd in large quantities, for soups ; celery in 

 beds, not blanched, but intended to have a little earth put about 

 it ; endive, broad and curled, in large quantities tied up for 

 blanching; Cos lettuce, a good deal of sorrel, a bad sort of 

 parsley ; melons, not in the Honfleur manner, but on ridges 

 under bell glasses as in England, and the surface of the ridges 



BB 2 



