206 Foreign Notices : — Germany. 



and planted from his designs. You have seen those immense avenues of elms 

 which were so magnificent in this park about forty years ago. Some of these 

 avenues still exist, but the trees in them are dying ; and not half remain of 

 those which were 12 French feet and upwards in circumference. The clayey 

 and sandy soil of Rambouillet has probably occasioned this destruction. 



There are in these gardens a great number of deciduous cypresses, which 

 were brought to Rambouillet about 1789, and planted on the borders of the 

 English river : of which the greater part were taken up about 1808 or 1809, 

 to be planted in an avenue in the dairy grounds ; and the rest were trans- 

 planted into the parterre, where they form an avenue of forty trees arranged 

 in two rows. These trees are all very beautiful ; some of them have trunks 

 4 ft. or 5 ft. in circumference ; and many of them have excrescences on their 

 roots which protrude more than a foot above the surface of the ground. 

 There is a still larger deciduous cypress, near the door of the cottage in the En- 

 glish garden, which is supposed to have been planted about 1738, shortly after 

 the formation of the gardens. This tree has twice had its leading shoot broken. 



There is a beautiful plantation of scarlet oaks {chenes rouges) in the English 

 garden, near the hermitage; but they have been planted too close together, 

 and want thinning. They were planted in 1787 or 1788. Some of the scarlet 

 oaks were transplanted about thirty years ago ; and there are several very fine 

 specimens near the farm. 



There are two cedars of Lebanon : one of which stands in the court of the 

 old pheasantry, and has had its leader broken ; the other is in a plantation of 

 pines near the farm buildings. There is also a live oak (Quercus virens) in 

 the same plantation, which is 2 ft. in circumference ; and, in the garden near 

 the dairy, are some red cedars, and some groups of the Quercus fastigiata. 



In the English garden there are several fine groups of tulip trees, catalpas, 

 planes, Judas trees, sumach, different kinds of maples, and other commoner 

 trees ; and in the dairy garden there are two liquidambars, several groups of 

 ikfyrica cerifera, &c. &c. The plantation of pines is composed of different 

 species mingled together purposely, without order ; though all the trees were 

 not sown, but planted {plantes enpaniere). Among these are the Scotch and 

 Weymouth pines, the Pinus maritima and P. Laricio, the larch, and the silver 

 and spruce firs. There are also some fine old specimens of Weymouth pines 

 in the English garden, near the hermitage. All these trees were planted about 

 1787, and they are now generally about 3 ft. or 4 ft. in circumference. Most 

 of them are handsome and vigorous I except in the more elevated situations, 

 where they are beginning to decay. — Bourgeois. 



Jardin de Fromont, a Ris, pres Paris, Dec. 29. 1834'. — Never in France was 

 the taste for fine trees, and, in general, for what I call la belle culture (as ana- 

 logous to the beaux arts), in such a low state as it is at present. Our horti- 

 culture is languishing. The sale of house plants is altogether at an end. 

 There is no longer any pleasure taken in fine flowers and in beautiful trees. 

 .... Combe-la- Ville is sold to a gentleman who has no taste for plants; and 

 the Baron Pappenheim's gardener, Cappes, with whom you were so much 

 pleased, was so shocked when he sav/ the trees neglected, that he has left his 

 place. A list of these trees, however, and their dimensions, is preparing for 

 you, from authentic documents, by the baron. — B. P. and S. B. 



GERMANY. 



Flotbeck Nurseries, Hamhurgh, Feb. 10. 1835. — You are, perhaps, aware 

 that my collection of hardy trees and shrubs is considered the most extensive 

 in this country. I have been particularly fortunate in naturalising or accli- 

 matising a great number of exotic species ; and, I believe, there are many in 

 my collections not at all, or at least very little, known in the British gardens. 

 At any rate, I received this impression last summer, when I travelled for 

 several months through England and Scotland, for the sole purpose of visiting 

 your collections. 



I have had the J^bies Douglaszi, these three years, growing beautifully out 

 of doors, quite hardy ; Pinus Lambert?«?;«, also out of doors ; and, during the 



