THE 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE, 



JUNE, 1828. 



PART I. 



ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. 



Art. I. On the Gardening and botany of Spain. By 

 Don Mariano La Gasca, late Director of the Royal Bo- 

 tanic Garden at Madrid. 



{Continued from Vol. XL p. S99.) 



PHARMACEUTIC Gardens. — Besides the gardens belonging 

 to the four principal schools of pharmacy already mentioned, 

 most of the general hospitals established in the capital and in 

 the provinces, as well as most of the convents of monks, and 

 various wealthy and enlightened professors of pharmacy, have 

 pharmaceutic gardens, more or less extensive. That of the 

 hospital of Valencia, situated within the city walls, is suf- 

 ficiently large, and was the principal practical school in which 

 I began the study of plants. At that period it contained a 

 respectable collection, and was managed by a very skilful gar- 

 dener, named Ramon Garcia, who, guided only by his natural 

 genius, succeeded in acquiring a very uncommon degree of 

 horticultural knowledge. Among the gardens belonging to 

 the monks, that of Santo Domingo de Silos, in the province 

 of Rioja, was the best. It was for many years under the 

 direction of the celebrated Father Saracha, corresponding- 

 member of the botanic garden of Madrid, and master of 

 Don Luis Nee, and of the late Don Manuel Rodriguez, pro- 

 fessor of pharmacy in the city of Leon, who kept in the same 

 city two gardens of this class, and who enriched himself 

 by the sale of the medicinal plants which are found on the 

 mountains of Leon, most of which were formerly imported 

 from abroad, and sold at exorbitant prices. Having esta- 

 blished in that province this new branch of commerce., it is 

 Vol. IV. — No. 14.. f 



