392 Gardening Visit to Paris, 



self the author of several useful works on gardening, and were very 

 hospitably and kindly received by that gentleman. M. Audot's 

 garden, which may contain an acre or upwards, is interesting 

 from the number of objects it contains, and from the good 

 account to which it is turtjed, both in" an ornamental and useful 

 point of view. There is a garden-house as a study, several 

 plant-houses, pits, and frames, and a small farmyard for poultry, 

 rabbits, pigs, a cow, &c. In short, there are few things belong- 

 ing to a small suburban villa which it does not contain. 



The Ely see Bourbon, and the Hotel of the English Ambas- 

 sador, are street houses, with parallelogram gardens, of about 

 a quarter of an acre in extent each. The middle of the ground 

 is hollowed out lengthwise, and the sides raised and undulated, 

 so as to produce a very good effect ; and, these sides being 

 planted, a shady walk is procured under trees and among shrubs, 

 of which, had care been taken at the time of planting, there need 

 not have been more than one or two of a kind. Nothing more 

 can be made of limited pieces of ground of this kind without 

 introducing either the Italian terraced, or an architectural, 

 garden, or a system of walks crossing each other in grotto-like 

 tunnels, by which any small place with a dry subsoil may be 

 made to appear many times larger than it really is. 



The only defect in the two gardens mentioned is, that they 

 are not united architecturally with the house. Mr. Gordon, the 

 gardener of the English ambassador, keeps up a considerable 

 collection of greenhouse plants, and has the whole place in good 

 order. With the exception of a small room, silvered instead of 

 gilt, there is nothing in the interior of the Elysee Bourbon de- 

 serving of particular notice. The meagre finishing of the large 

 dining-room, one end of which is a mirror without a frame, 

 gives the idea of coarseness and want of taste. The library is a 

 very small room ; and what is curious is, that the only book- 

 shelves it contains are in a gallery to which there is no means of 

 ascending but by a trap-ladder, which is shut up in a closet, and 

 which could not be used either by a lady or an elderly person of 

 either sex. 



Nurseries and Florists^ Gardens. — The garden of M. Tripet 

 Leblanc, 19. Avenue de Breteuil, and that of M. Fion, Rue des 

 trois Couronnes, we found both richly stocked and in excellent 

 order. In the former there are extensive collections of auriculas 

 and carnations ; and, indeed, an extraordinary degree of attention 

 is paid to every description of florist's flowers, as well as to many 

 kinds of culinary vegetables and fruits. The garden, though, as 

 it were, in the heart of Paris, yet from being in an artificial 

 hollow, and being surrounded by banks covered with trees and 

 bushes, might be taken for a garden in the suburbs. The 

 family of Tripet have been celebrated for their tulips for three 



