Park of Chantilly. 131 



purchase a wheel and windlass that has become too frail to 

 wind up stones, but which serves him as a means by which he 

 descends and ascends ; throwing down his stable dung, earth, 

 and spawn ; and managing them below much in the same way 

 as in England. Mushrooms are also grown in cellars in Paris, 

 and in market-gardens on the surface of the ground. There 

 appear to be two distinct varieties of this fungus : one grown 

 in very firm soil, the colour of which is of a whitish yellow; 

 and the other, grown in very loose black rich soil and on 

 dung ridges, which is of a small size and delicate white 

 colour. We found both sorts in great perfection in the 

 market-garden of M. Gallois, at the Abbaye Saint Antoine. 



There are many points of practice in the horticulture of 

 France which might be improved from the horticulture of 

 other countries ; and many in which other countries might 

 derive improvement from France. In the forcing department, 

 and in the culture of the pine-apple, the French have had 

 little practice ; and have consequently much to learn from the 

 Dutch and the English, who have had a great deal. In the 

 culture of salads during the winter, and in the growth of 

 mushrooms throughout the year, the gardeners of Britain 

 may learn a great deal from those of Paris. Fifty years ago, 

 the pruning and training of fruit trees was better understood 

 in France than in Great Britain ; and we have nothing, even 

 now, in the way of the culture of the vine in England, so 

 simple and ingenious as the practice at Thomery. (See Vol. V. 

 p. 287.) Perhaps, on the whole, considering the difficulties of 

 climate to be overcome in France, the heat and drought in 

 summer, and the great cold in winter, the French gardeners 

 have more merit in producing or preserving the culinary vege- 

 tables at such seasons, in the open air, than those of Britain. 



We shall now proceed to the villa gardens which we 

 visited, and we shall take them in chronological rather than 

 in geographical order. 



The Parle of Chantilly is of great extent, but of little 

 beauty. The surface is nearly flat, the soil light and sandy, 

 and the whole naturally a scattered forest of beech, hornbeam, 

 birch, poplar, and other secondary deciduous trees. The house 

 is a huge pile, which, however, has been diminished in size by 

 the dilapidations of the Revolution. Near it is a large pond 

 of artificial water, and a piece of ground laid out in the 

 English manner Amongst the extraordinary things shown to 

 strangers are the stables. These, the traveller Duppa observes, 

 " are magnificent, and in the highest degree unfit for their 

 purpose. They are at least 40 ft. high, and 600 ft. long, 

 without accommodation for a bushel of corn, or a single truss 



K 2 



