10 Notes and Reflections durhig a Tour : — 



saw 65 plants in fruit ; most of the fruit coloured, or begin- 

 ning to colour. We were informed that, during the last three 

 years, ripe pines had been supplied to Charles X.'s table 

 every day in the year. All the pots were plunged in unmixed 

 tan, except those in Baldwin's pits, where the tan was mixed 

 with dung and leaves. In the tan-pit of the larger houses 

 were tubers of the sweet potato (Convolvulus Baltdtas), to 

 preserve them during the winter, for the purpose of producing 

 shoots to be slipped off, and used as sets for planting in com- 

 mon hot-beds, or pits in the spring. A sort of sweet potato 

 is grown here, obtained from St. Domingo, and there called 

 the Qiiarantin ; which, as the name imports, produces tubers 

 fit to eat in 40 days. In Europe, as well as in North Ame- 

 rica, it is found extremely difficult to preserve the tubers of 

 the sweet potato throughout the winter. M. Massey finds it 

 easiest to do this by keejiing them in a growing state m the 

 bark bed. Admiral TchitchagofF's gardener at Sceaux keeps 

 them in dry sand in a room, from which the slightest degree 

 of frost is excluded. Kidneybeans were in a growing state, 

 and a stock of young tomato plants ready to transplant into 

 their pits to fruit during the winter, the fresh fruit being 

 wanted throughout the year for soups, stews, and sauces. In 

 a low Dutch vinery, grapes, said to be the Dutch Chasselas, 

 Were (Dec. 24'.) showing blossom, which, we were told, 

 would be expanded in a fortnight, and the fruit ripened by 

 the end of March. Peas were growing on the floor of another 

 house ; and these, we were told, would be ready to gather about 

 the same time. Some pits contained excellent lettuces ; and we 

 Were told that, between the pits and the open garden, kidney- 

 beans, lettuces, and tomatoes were supplied every day in the 

 year. Strawberries are not much asked for ; and, therefore, 

 they are merely forced so as to come in by the end of March. 

 On noticing the circumstance of so many things being calcu- 

 lated to come in about the end of March, we were reminded 

 that there is such a thino- as Lent : and that as Catholic devo- 

 tees, like Charles X., rarely suffer meat to be seen on then* 

 tables during that season, it is an object to supply its place by 

 rarity and variety. M. Massey received 40 sorts of straw- 

 berries from England ; but, like most Continental gardeners, 

 he greatly prefers, both in point of flavour and general use- 

 fulness, the Frasicr dcs Alpcs. He says that nothing can be 

 easier than, by having quantities of these in frames to be 

 heated at pleasure by linings, to gather ripe fruit every day in 

 the year ; and he has heard that this actually was done in 

 Louis XIV.'s time, as we know that it now is, or lately was, 

 done in some of the royal gardens of Germany. No mush- 



