130 _ Notes and Reflections during a Tour : — 



portion to the degree of cultivation. In this single article of 

 seeing flowers with the eye of a general observer, and seeing 

 them with the eye of a botanist, how immense is the advantage 

 of possessing a little knowledge ! and if this be the case in so 

 small a matter, how important to the enjoyment of life must 

 be the education of all our faculties and feelings ! All human 

 enjoyment above that of the brutes around us is the result of 

 this cultivation. Whoever neglects self-cultivation, in every 

 particular matter with which he has to do, is neglecting his 

 own happiness, and trifling with the gift of life. 



The Flower Mai'ket of Paris occupies an open'area of about 

 two acres, and the stands of the different florists are held 

 under three parallel rows of the common and three-thorned 

 acacia. These stands are almost always kept by the wives 

 or daughters of the growers, and not, as in London, by a dis- 

 tinct class intermediate between the grower and the consumer. 

 Every thing connected with the stands is portable ; the pots 

 and plants are, for the most part, set on the ground ; and 

 only such as sell seeds and cut flowers have small benches on 

 which they are placed. In summer the attendant lady sits in 

 a chair, close behind which is a pole or rod terminating in a 

 hole, for the insertion of an umbrella, which serves also as a 

 parasol. In winter she has a mat round the chair, and straw 

 upon a board, on which to place her feet. Some have small 

 portable houses, with a brazier of charcoal embers. We 

 visited the market on September 1 3th and December 20th. 



Sept. 13. — The number and variety of well-grown shrubs 

 and plants in pots very much surprised us, never having seen 

 any thing like such a show in Covent Garden Market. There 

 were not many cut flowers. Among the plants in pots and 

 in flower, we noted down at the time as follows : — The pome- 

 granate; oranges in great variety of size, with and without 

 fruit; iSblanum Pseudo-capsicum Hort. Brit..^ with green and 

 ripe fruit and blossoms, a shrub by far too much neglected in 

 England ; jasmines, several species ; double oleander, white 

 and red ; myrtles, double and single, and broad and narrow 

 leaved ; roses of various sorts ; vines in pots, with from six 

 to eight large bunches of grapes on each ; apple trees with 

 fruit; ^Ithae^a frutex ; Magnolm grandiflora; Clerodendrum 

 fragrans ; Crassula obliqua ; tuberoses ; forget-me-not ; straw- 

 berries covered with fruit; and, as near as we could estimate, 

 about forty-five sorts of green-house and hot-house plants in 

 flower, the names of which we could not stop to take down. 



Balsams, asters, phlox, georginas, and similar autumnal 

 flowers, were very numerous. There were plants taken up 

 with balls of cocksfoot grass, and pots of young barley, both, 



