242 Botanic Garden of Madrid. 



as lettuces, cauliflowers, French beans, potatoes, onions, 

 love-apples, egg-plants, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, aspa- 

 ragus, &c. and some fruit-trees. This department is ter- 

 minated by a yard, in which manure is collected, and where 

 there is a house inhabited by the contractor, who furnishes 

 the manure required for the garden, and who draws the 

 water from the draw-wells. 



The upper part, which is bounded by the Buen Retiro, and 

 with which it communicates by a gate, forms a small acclivity, 

 from which a great part of the city and its environs are seen. 

 Its most elevated point, which cannot be watered, is planted 

 with about thirty different varieties of vine, which are in bad 

 condition. On the southern slope of this acclivity, which may 

 be watered, there is about half a fanegada of ground used for 

 the cultivation -of different varieties of strawberries, garden- 

 hyacinths, narcissus, and tulips, and of some shrubs for form- 

 ing fences ; about two fanegadas and a half are employed for 

 rearing in small quantities the cerealia, and another portion, 

 about a fanegada, for the cultivation of the Arundo donax, 

 whose reeds are used in various ways in the garden. Lastly, 

 another fanegada is employed as a nursery for trees affording 

 shade, and for some different varieties of olive-trees, and other 

 fruit trees which are cultivated in the Peninsula. A walk 

 some twelve feet broad surrounds this part of the garden, and 

 has on both sides, in that part where the vineyard is, a pali- 

 sade, which is covered over by various varieties of vines cul- 

 tivated for the table ; and with respect to the kitchen-gar- 

 den, it has on its borders fruit trees, with gooseberry-trees 

 between. 



The seeds of all plants, with the exception of the cerealia, 

 and of some trees and shrubs of Europe and North America, 

 are sown in flower-pots, and in the open air, towards the 

 end of January or beginning of February, and this continues 

 till April, and sometimes till May, and even June. Generally 

 the seeds gathered in the garden itself are the first that are 

 sown, beginning with those families which can best endure 

 the severity of the season. From the year 1816, the umbelli- 

 ferous plants, cisunese, graminese, perennials, and several 

 others that will live in the open air, have been sown in 

 autumn ; it being observed that their germination was more 

 certain than if they were sown in the spring, and that 

 annual umbelliferous plants so managed grow and fruit 

 much bettei, the generality of those sown in spring be- 

 ing destroyed by the first heats, without permitting their 

 fruit to ripen, and frequently even before they were in 



