Foreign Notices. 211 



produces good fruit. The flowers have the rich scent of the sweet violet 

 ( Fiola odorata), though not so powerful as that of the delicate harbinger of 

 spring. As I have not access to the monograph of the strawberry, by 

 Mr. Barnet of the Horticultural Society, I am not aware whether or not he 

 has noticed this peculiarity. — Otcos. Yorkshire, lot. 54°, Oct. 31. 1829. 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 



FRANCE. 



Schools in Auvergne. — Mademoiselle d' Orleans, sister of the Royal Duke, 

 has a seat at Raudan, in Auvergne, where the princess has established a 

 great number of benevolent institutions. Among them are a lace school for 

 girls ; a school of drawing and elementary architecture for workmen ; an 

 evening school for workmen and artists ; a school of mutual instruction for 

 girls ; a gratuitous pharmacy, and a school of mutual instruction, for all the 

 children of Raudan and the environs. (Galignani's Messenger.') 



Rural Coffee-houses at Lyons. — On a fine Sunday afternoon, all the popu- 

 lation of Lyons, in their gayest attire, seem to come out on this road. In 

 London the people scatter themselves on such an occasion in all directions ; 

 in these French towns all seem to direct their steps to one point, and pains 

 are taken by the government, or the community, to make the point agreeable. 

 This coffee-house has, however, at present one disadvantage ; the garden 

 is on a terrace level with the saloon, and a row of young plane trees by the 

 side of the road below, is just of a height to shut out the prospect from 

 the whole range. Another coffee-house, which has its little summer houses 

 and Chinese pavilions scattered about at different elevations, is better in 

 this respect, but inferior in every other. ( Wood's Letters of an Architect, 

 vol. i. p. 134.) 



The Greffe des Charlatans. — The department of grafts, in the Jardin des 

 Plantes at Paris, contains a number of curious particulars, and M. Thouin, 

 the professor, was so good as to accompany me, and to explain the various 

 experiments. Virgil has said, that if you pass a vine through a walnut tree, 

 it will bear the most large and beautiful fruit, but bitter and uneatable. To 

 use M. Thouin's expression, " le fait est faux : " he made several attempts to 

 conduct a vine through the trunk of a walnut tree; but as soon as it began 

 to enlarge sufficiently to feel the confinement, it uniformly died, and he was 

 never able to procure any fruit from it. He then passed a vine through a 

 pear tree, whose wood being softer, did not compress it so much as entirely 

 to stop its growth ; but the grapes produced above this insertion did not 

 differ in size or flavour from those below. If then, he reasoned, the grapes 

 are altered in size or flavour by passing through a walnut tree, the converse 

 of the proposition ought to hold good, and we shall alter the walnuts by 

 passing a branch through a vine. The experiment was tried, but both grapes 

 and walnuts remained as they were before. Another graft is called " des 

 charlatans." Pliny says that Lucullus showed him a tree producing grapes, 

 apples, pears, cherries, and other fruit, belonging to trees having no relation 

 to each other, from the same root; and this, he tells, was effected by graft- 

 ing. It has been a problem ever since among gardeners, to produce this tree 

 of Lucullus. M. Thouin has succeeded, not by grafting, but by planting 

 the several stocks in a hollow trunk. (Ibid.) 



Currants. — The French are about to introduce into Corsica the culture 

 of the raisin de Corinthe (currants), for which purpose a thousand plants 

 have been imported from the Morea. It is thought by the best horticul- 

 turists, that the climate of Corsica is well adapted to the growth of this 

 excellent grape. (Lit. Gaz.) 



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