Botanic Garden of Madrid. 237 



Cervi, has also ceased to exist : the same fate has attended 

 the botanico-agronomical garden of Valladolid, which owed 

 its foundation, in 1803, chiefly to the illustrious bishop Don 

 Juan Antonio Hernandez de Larrea, a model of learning 

 and patriotism, and which was supported by the members of 

 the Economical Society of the same city till the invasion of 

 Napoleon. 



The botanical garden of Madrid, founded in 1755, and 

 placed in the royal country seat, called El Soto de Migas 

 Calientes, on the left banks of the river Manzanares, and at 

 about a mile and a half from the city, was transferred in 1 788 to 

 the place where it now stands within the walls of Madrid. It is 

 bounded on the west by the magnificent promenade of the 

 Prado, from which it is separated only by an elegant iron 

 railing; on the south by that of Atocha, on the east by the 

 garden of the Buen Retiro, and on the north by that of the 

 monks of St. Gerome, and by the sumptuous building of the 

 Museum of Natural History, erected by the wise and munificent 

 Charles III., and which is now the Museum of Pictures ; but 

 another very handsome building is to be erected for natural 

 history in the Prado, so that in this respect it will hereafter be 

 one of the most splendid museums in Europe. (Link's Travels 

 in Portugal, and through France and Spain, p. 103.) Its figure 

 is an irregular polygon ; it has two principal gates, of an ex- 

 cellent style of architecture, as entrances for the public, and 

 four other gates for the private service of the garden. Its 

 extent is twenty-eight fanegadas * (about forty-two acres), and 

 is divided into two unequal parts. The largest of these has 

 about eighteen fanegadas ; it is divided from east to west into 

 two equal parts by a magnificent walk of about sixty feet 

 broad, beginning at the principal gate of the Prado, and ter- 

 minating at a handsome portico that leads to the lecturing 

 hall ; and from north to south into three plots, two of which, 

 the smallest, are appropriated to the use of the practical 

 school of botany, and to contain such plants and per- 

 ennials as have not been examined. Each of these plots 

 is subdivided into four equal quarters, and these into as 

 many other divisions, except the two upper ones, which have 

 only three : in the centre of each there is a small fountain, 

 whose waters are brought through subterraneous pipes from 

 the two principal reservoirs intended for irrigation, which 

 have their origin in a source near the Plaza de Toros, at 



* A fanega is a measure containing about a hundred weight; and a fane- 

 gada, the extent of arable land which takes a fanega of seed, about 1§ acre. 



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