THE BOTANIC GARDEN IN REGENTS PARK. 521 



ors. The display of fruits and flowers fakes place in large tents 

 and marquees, pitched on the lawn, and bands of music perform in 

 the gardens. All the elite of the West End of London are here ; for 

 in London, horticultural shows are even more fashionable than the 

 opera ; and a gayer or more beautiful sight is not easily found. At 

 the last festival of this sort, the great novelty was a magnificent plat, 

 or garden of rhododendrons, of all colors ; the plants, in full bloom, 

 were large and finely -grown specimens, sent beforehand from various 

 nursery gardens fifty or one hundred miles off, planted here in a 

 scene by themselves, where they bloomed in the same perfection as 

 if they had grown here for a dozen years. 



I was exceedingly gratified with this subscription garden, and 

 examined it in all its details with great attention. In its tasteful 

 arrangement, its moderate extent, its management and its position, it 

 afforded the finest possible type for a similar establishment near one 

 of our largest cities. Here are eighteen acres of the most exquisite 

 lawn, pleasure-grounds, and conservatory, wholly created and main- 

 tained by sixteen hundred individuals, and enjoyed by, perhaps, five 

 or six thousand persons more their friends at all times. Here is a 

 fine example of the art of landscape-gardening, which, if it were 

 near New- York, Philadelphia, or Boston, so that it could be seen 

 by those who are anxious to learn, would have a great influence on 

 the taste of the country in ornamentel gardening ; here is the most 

 perfect exhibition ground, for the shows of a horticultural society, 

 that can be imagined or devised ; and here is a scientific arrange- 

 ment of plants, for the study of botanical and medical classes, the 

 living plants arranged according to the best system. Half the money 

 which has been paid annually into the credit account of the ceme- 

 teries of Greenwood, Mount Auburn, or Laurel Hill, would keep up 

 in the very highest condition (as this garden is kept), one like it in 

 the neighborhood of any of our cities. And the precincts of the 

 Elysian fields, near New-York Brookline, near Boston on the 

 banks of the Wissahicon, near Philadelphia, would be as fine loca- 

 lities for such subscription gardens as Eegent's Park is for London. 

 If our citizens, who have the money, could come here and see what 

 it will do, expended in this way, I am sure they would not hesitate 

 to subscribe the " needful." 



