84 The Public Gardens and Parks of Paris. 



PARC MONCEAU. 



This is a place which should be seen by every horticultural visitor 

 to Paris. It is not large, bur. exceedingly well stored, and usually 

 displays a vast wealth of subtropical plants during summer. In 

 spring it is radiant with the sweet bloom of early-flowering shrubs 

 and trees, and every bed and bank covered with pansies, Alyssum, 

 Aubrietia, and all the best known of the spring flowers, while 

 thrushes and blackbirds are whistling away as if miles in the 

 country, though it is only a few minutes' walk from the Rue du 

 Faubourg St. Honore. It contains abundant plantations of good 

 shrubs, large trees, with shady walks through them, and masses of 

 one kind of shrub here and there. More than i^o plants of the 

 fine Acer negundo variegata may be counted in one clump, and 

 around nearly all the clumps are detached circular little beds, filled 

 with sandy peat, just big enough for one plant. A lot of specimens 

 of Thuja aurea outside one clump of trees and shrubs is a handy 

 illustration of the way they dot about the subtropical plants in 

 summer j and, by the way, if we made good use of such plants we 

 should have little want for costly " subtropicals." In one large bed 

 Aralia papyrifera was left out all the winter, the bed snugly 

 thatched over ; but though the plant may be kept in that way, it 

 does not seem a desirable course to pursue. This park was laid out 

 so long ago as 1778 for Philip Egalite as an " English garden," and 

 passed through various changes, till it at last fell into the hands of 

 the Municipality of Paris, a very astute corporation, who have con- 

 verted it into a charming garden, and are not likely to part with it 

 in a hurry. It contains a small and not pretty lake, half encircled 

 with round fluted columns. 



Dr. Moore, of Glasnevin, once told me that he considered this in 

 its full dress the most successful example of flower-gardening he had 

 ever seen, and therefore it may be well if we look at it in that state. 



The system of planting adopted here as well as in the other gar- 

 dens of the city is often striking, often beautiful, and not unfrequently 

 bad. It is striking when you see a number of that fine silvery tree, 



