Commercial Gardens. 1 7 



gardener, who has been in England, informed us that he had 

 a plan for enticing the mole cricket, by an odoriferous com- 

 position, under a glass or pot, so that it might be taken and 

 destroyed ; and that his employer intended to put his plan to 

 the test of experiment, and publish the result. M. Beck is 

 an intelligent man ; and we gave him No. III. of what is to us 

 one of the best books hi the world, viz. our Magazine of 

 Natural History. 



Sept. 29. — Qiientm^s Nursery, in the Rue des Bourgui- 

 gnons, is chiefly devoted to the culture and forcing of roses, 

 flowers, and the more common green-house plants, for the 

 Marche anx Fleurs, where Madame Quentin's stand is No. 32. 

 The nursery occupies about an acre : when we saw it, it was 

 admirably stocked, and as well cultivated, and as clean, as any 

 piece of ground of the same extent we ever saw in any country. 

 Jasminum grand iflorum, common myrtle, the orange, and the 

 mignonette are extensively cultivated here ; and the great 

 object is to have plants in flower at all times in the year. 

 Between 400 and 500 large orange trees are kept, chiefly on 

 account of their blossoms, which are gathered for the per- 

 fumers. 



M. Vilmorin and Co. have two nurseries or seed-gardens, one 

 in Paris, and the other at M. Vilmorin's country residence, 

 at a few miles' distance. Both are chiefly used for proving 

 seeds. M. Vilmorin and Co., though unquestionably the first 

 seedsmen in the world, are not nurserymen; that is, they do not 

 grow for sale either plants or trees. We walked over the country 

 garden with M. Lacroix, a young man scientifically educated, 

 and skilled in several languages, who belonged to M. Vilmorin's 

 establishment, and who accompanied us to most of the nur- 

 series and market-gardens round Paris ; and for whose most 

 assiduous services in this, and in various other ways, we are 

 much indebted both to himself and M. Vilmorin. Our atten- 

 tion was directed incidentally to the following articles : — great 

 quantities of auriculas, grown entirely for their seeds ; the Lima 

 bean (Z)61ichos *lanatus), with short broad pods, and very 

 prolific ; the violet-coloured carrots ; young plants of varieties 

 of the Puuis sylvestris, those called Pin de Riga, and the Pin de 

 Hagenau, of which last, being reckoned the best, we sent 

 home seeds, and the plants raised from some of them are now 

 growing at Loudon's Howe, and Loudon's Brae, in Perth- 

 shire ; dwarf Lidian corn, ma'is de qunrante jours, ma'is a 

 poidet, and ma'is suo'e, perfectly ripe; bunches of grapes 

 bagged in hair-cloth, and also in black wire-cloth (toile metal- 

 lique) ; single specimens of most of the varieties of fruit trees 

 known in the nurseries about Paris ; a grass ground, in which 



Vol. VIL — No. 30. c 



