154 Baron HiigeVs Garden and Collection of Plants. 



that, throughout the whole summer, there be no lack of flowering plants. It 

 is but justice to the baron's head gardener (M. Abel), to say that he not only 

 has fully accomplished this task, but has also been successful in all the requi- 

 sites of this garden. The connoisseur, however, does not see the usual orna- 

 mental plants in this sea of flowers, but a great many rarities; and, in short, 

 here, as in every part of the grounds, the aesthetic taste of the baron is para- 

 mount. Beautiful is this garden within a garden, and hence it has be- 

 come the model garden of Austria. Here the most beautiful landscape opens 

 on the view; the gently swelling hills appear in the most romantic forms, and 

 on one of these is seen the pretty little garden-dwelling of Dr. von Malfatti. 

 At a short distance behind you stands one of the tasteful edifices of the 

 proprietor, which are one story high, viz. a summer-house. The painting of 

 the saloon is in the Indian style, from a design by the baron, the ceiling con- 

 sisting of various-coloured ornaments, and the walls of paintings on a red 

 ground. Small brackets are fixed on it here and there, on which statues are 

 placed. The chairs and sofas are covered with silk, which the baron brought 

 from India and China, and the whole is arranged and kept up in the Oriental 

 style. On the right is a smaller saloon, and on leaving this you enter the open 

 air, where the eye is delighted with the beautiful flowering climbers, and the 

 tastefully arranged flower-beds which surround the building. Some of the 

 climbers grow on yellow and red rods, which support a projection of the 

 summer-house, and thus form a kind of covered terrace. Farther on is a 

 beautiful Catdlpa syring<e£6Y\a, ; and on leaving the building, which is girded, as 

 it were, with a band of flowers, the eye glides over a carpet of turf to a green 

 hillock, where the prospect becomes more extensive. On the left, towards the 

 west, are the villages of Upper and Lower St. Beit ; and on the right, and 

 somewhat more to the north-west, on the side of a gently swelling hill, are the 

 villages of Baumgarten and Hiitteldorf. 



We now leave this part of the garden to enter the propagating department. 

 This house is 125 ft. long, with slanting lights facing the east and west. It 

 is heated by hot water under the direction of M. Daniel Hooibrenk, Baron 

 HiigePs garden director, and is most admirably suited for the purpose. We 

 have to thank M. Hooibrenk for having introduced this method of heating 

 in Austria. He erected the first apparatus in 1837, and it has not only been 

 imitated here, but in Hungary, and also in other countries. The utility 

 of this method of heating in propagating plants may be easily seen when com- 

 pared with the old manner, still to be met with here and there, of heating by 

 means of tan and horse-dung, which is always dirty, and very uncertain. 



What M. Hooibrenk has effected by this means in propagation may be 

 witnessed in the propagating garden here, where the present extensive collec- 

 tion was obtained by the above method ; and of these plants I need only 

 mention the propagation of the Coniferae from cuttings, and other plants that 

 are difficult to strike, such as Agnostus sinuata, Dracophyllum attenuatum, 

 Magnolz« grandiflora, 7 v lex Jquifolium, Quadrk heterophylla, Stadmannaa 

 australis, Dacrydium elatum, »Sapiiim berberidi folium, Lomatia ilicifolia, 

 Ddmmara australis, iVepenthes distillatoria, Grevillea robusta, Araucaria, 

 &c. ; and the innumerable specimens of these show that success is not ac- 

 cidental. There are whole beds of Pontic rhododendrons, ericas, camellias, 

 Indian and Pontic azaleas, peonies, &c, all of which have been propagated 

 by the above method. The construction of the houses already mentioned, 

 fourteen in number, is likewise adapted for the propagation of plants, and does 

 great credit to the skill and knowledge of M. Hooibrenk. The apparatus for 

 heating those houses for propagation, and for the growth of young and tender 

 plants, is usually flues. The baron, after a complete examination of all kinds 

 of heating, has been fully convinced that a system of smoke flues at a moderate 

 depth in the soil is the best method of heating; but these must have all the 

 joints or seams stopped up by means of a very effective cement, consisting of 

 a proportionate mixture of finely-sifted or beaten clay, ashes, and stone in a 

 powdered state, mixed with salt water ; and the covering should be plates of 



