600 APPENDIX. 



one is admitted but those who dwell in the Museum, or such as come 

 to visit them ; for which purpose sentries are placed at the three prin- 

 cipal gates, and a patrol warns those that have remained in the garden, 

 when it is shut. During the night the same survey in the interior is 

 made, and sentries are placed near those parts of the Museum where 

 it is thought necessary for the safety of the collections. 



The several schools or enclosures devoted to a particular branch of 

 horticulture can never be entered, except at the time when the gar- 

 deners are at work in them, by obtaining the permission of the professor, 

 M.Thouin, or of the chief gardener, which is seldom or never refused. 



Those who from a taste for botany are desirous of visiting the " hot 

 and green-houses, in which the plants of warmer climates are reared, 

 must also apply to the professor or chief gardener for admittance ; this 

 is rather less easily granted, as the cultivation of the delicate plants 

 kept in them requires some regularity in the heat, and the constant at- 

 tention of the gardeners who have the charge of them, and as they are 

 set so close for want of space, that not more than two or three people 

 can be admitted at once, without danger to the plants. As few persons, 

 but those who have some knowledge of the science make such appli- 

 cations, there is no example of a refusal. It must be observed how- 

 ever, that children are not admitted. 



The botanical garden, in which all the known plants are systemati- 

 cally arranged and labelled, is open from the time the lectures on bo- 

 tany begin, until the end of autumn, every day from six o'clock, except 

 during the two hours when the gardeners take their meal. No ticket 

 of admittance is here required. 



At the time when the lectures on horticulture are given, those who 

 have been inscribed as attending them, are provided with a ticket of 

 admittance into the garden for fruit-trees, kitchen herbs and agricul- 

 ture, where they can observe the several modes of cultivation, and the 

 experiments that have been prepared by M. Thouin for the elucidation 

 of his discourses. 



Each year, from December to February, a general distribution of 

 the seeds that have been gathered in the gardens, and of those 

 sent by the numerous correspondents of the Museum, or purposely 

 procured from other countries by the board of agriculture, is made to 

 cultivators, nursery men and amateurs; first throughout France, and 

 then to those of foreign countries. 



