Commercial Gar'dens. 13 



troduced us to M. Chatenay-Magnifique,^/s aine. This worthy 

 man first showed us his wife and family, apparently as hard- 

 working people as himself; and then his kitchen fireplace, 

 the back iron plate of which exhibited the royal arms, and 

 bore the date of 1659. M. Chatenay's grandfather, having 

 been a gardener to one of the kings of France, became pos- 

 sessed of this plate ; and during the Revolution of 1789, when 

 every thing royal at Vitry and Choisy was destroyed, it was 

 saved by being turned outside in. 



M. Chatenay's Nursery Grounds are at least a mile from his 

 house, in the village of Vitry. His stock is about as well 

 grown as that of the English nurseries, but the order and 

 keeping less neat. The ver blanc (grub of the cockchafer) 

 has destroyed many of his stocks. Almond stones are planted 

 in rows like beans in January, budded with peaches and nec- 

 tarines in the following September, and are ready for sale by 

 the end of October in the year after. Roses budded in June 

 are ready for sale in October. Lilacs are raised from cuttings 

 planted in November by thousands. Many of the forest trees 

 20 to 25 ft. high ; and we were informed (what, indeed, we 

 saw in many parts of the country by the road-sides) that, Avhen 

 removed to their final situations, they were headed down to 10 

 or 12 ft., and deprived of all their side shoots. However con- 

 trary this may be to the doctrine of Sir Henry Steuart, we 

 believe, from observation and experience, that where the roots 

 have not been previously prepared the French mode is the 

 best, at least with most deciduous trees. If, in such a case, 

 a tree could be planted with all its branches for one year, 

 and pruned in the second year, that would, doubtless, be still 

 better ; but the objection lies in the expense of staking. The 

 first year, the whole energies of a tree planted with all its 

 branches would be directed to the formation of roots for the 

 support of the head ; these branches being removed in the 

 beginning of the second year, the concentrated energies of the 

 roots, in which the power of the tree chiefly resides, would be 

 directed to the production of one main shoot and some subor- 

 dinate ones. In the autumn of 1824, we planted, in our grass- 

 plot at Bayswater, two plants of deciduous cypress, purchased 

 from Lee's nursery : they were without balls, and each about 

 5 ft. high. One of them, in the course of the winter, was acci- 

 dentally broken over within a foot of the surface ; but the other 

 remained uninjured, and was not divested of any of its shoots. 

 The headed-down tree, next spring, made a vigorous shoot, 

 which threw out side shoots ; the other made only very short 

 shoots. Both trees went on growing at the same relative rate 

 for about four years ; and they have been since, and are now. 



