May 23, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



209 



of various committees and of the jury of awards in the 

 Horticultural Department of the Exposition. It is illus- 

 trated with 1 10 reproductions of drawings and photographs, 

 most of them very interesting as regards their subjects, 

 although not all of them as well printed as the illustrations 

 of such a work should be ; and also a beautiful folding 

 plan, on a large scale, of the exhibition which gave the 

 author his opportunity and his text. 



This text Monsieur Baltet approached from the historical, 

 not the merely descriptive, point of view ; and, rehearsing 

 the course of 'French horticulture during the century of 

 which the Exposition celebrated the completion, he pro- 

 duced a treatise of permanent interest and value. 



The first horticultural society of Paris was born in 1827, 

 and held its first exhibition in June, 1831, while in the in- 

 terval, in 1829, the Horticultural Society of Nantes held its 

 first "floral fete." During the past sixty years similar asso- 

 ciations have grown up all over France to the number of 

 200, receiving encouragement from the central government 

 as well as from those of the departments and the towns 

 where they exist. 



Older than any of these French societies is that famous 

 association which held its first exhibition at Ghent in 1809 ; 

 but it may be recalled that Ghent was then on French sod. 



The first unofficial French horticultural journal was is- 

 sued in May, 1790, under the title Feuille d' agriculture et 

 d'economie rurale, soon changing its name to Feuille du 

 cullivateur, and Broussonet, Parmentier, Thouin and Vil- 

 morin were among its contributors. This paper, says 

 Monsieur Baltet, was really the grandmother of all agricul- 

 tural periodicals, although the yearly Almanac du Bon Jar- 

 dinier was first issued in 1754, and is still in existence. The 

 Revue Horticole was born in 1828, but not until 1877 does 

 Monsieur Baltet make mention of a journal devoted to a 

 special class of plants. 



Few plants new to the kitchen-garden have been intro- 

 duced into France since 1789. The most important are the 

 Tomato, re-introduced from Spain about 1820; the New 

 Zealand Spinach, introduced in 1802, and the Stachys, 

 brought from Pekin in 1882. But, on the other hand, 

 there has been a vast activity in the popularization of 

 vegetables previously unappreciated, and in the produc- 

 tion of new and improved varieties. From the point of 

 view of the kitchen-gardener, says Monsieur Baltet, this 

 century may be called " the epoch of the Potato and the 

 Sugar Beet" More than 3,700,000 acres of French soil are 

 now devoted to Potato-growing ; and many curious at- 

 tempts have been made to find a rival for this tuber, even 

 the tubers of Dahlia and of Boussingaultia have been con- 

 scientiously tested. The subterranean culture of Mush- 

 rooms was first attempted by a gardener named Chambry 

 in the year 1800. To-day there are more than 250 Mush- 

 room-growers in the Department of the Seine, owning 

 3,000 beds, and annually producing more than ten million 

 kilogrammes of the nutritious fungi. 



The forcing of plants is mentioned by writers of the sev- 

 enteenth century, but was then attempted only by a few 

 wealthy persons. In 1735 Jean de la Quintinye ottered 

 " out-of-season " delicacies to Louis Quatorze, and his suc- 

 cessor, Lenormand, placed before Louis Quinze, on the 

 24th of December, strawberries and pineapples grown in 

 France, and at the same period melons were successfully 

 forced. In 1776 strawberries were first forced for sale in 

 midwinter by a gardener, who likewise grew Roses under 

 glass. New fruits and vegetables were quickly added to 

 the winter list, but the great development of cultivation 

 under glass dates from about the year 1830, after the sys- 

 tem of hot-water heating was perfected. A certain Jamain, 

 who lived from 1787 to 1848, seems to have been the first 

 to furnish grapes in midwinter, but the date of his first suc- 

 cess is not mentioned. 



In September, 1856, the first pomological congress was 

 held in France, and Monsieur Baltet himself presided over 

 it. The Pomological Society of France was soon afterward 

 created, holding its sessions in various parts of the coun- 



try. Its first medal of honor was given to Jean-Laurent 

 Jamain in 1867. 



Among interesting pomological details we may note that 

 Monsieur Baltet names the Williams Pear, produced in 

 England in 1770, as now holding the first commercial rank 

 among the fruits grown in France, particularly good re- 

 sults having been produced by grafting it upon the Ameri- 

 can Thorn, called in that country Petit Corail — our Cra- 

 taegus ; and he says that the grafting of Pears upon different 

 American Thorns may prove very beneficial as facilitating 

 their introduction into districts where they do not flourish 

 upon their own roots. 



The interesting chapter on Dendrology embraces an ac- 

 count of the enormous importations of new species of 

 ornamental and timber trees made during the century, and 

 of the dissemination of striking varieties through the artifi- 

 cial propagation of natural sports. The rapidity with 

 which an interesting tree makes a place for itself in .com- 

 merce is shown by the fact that Sequoia gigantea, discov- 

 ered in 1851, was introduced into France in 1853, and a 

 single firm was able to sell 10,000 rooted cuttings in 1857, 

 and 30,000 in i860. 



The list of our flowering plants has, of course, grown 

 still more rapidly during the century. From the entertain- 

 ing history of this development we can only refer to the 

 forcing and blanching of Lilacs. This was practiced a 

 century ago, but has grown to a great industry only 

 within the last thirty or forty years. In 1870 a single gar- 

 dener near Paris forced 20,000 Lilacs, and now there are 

 350 greenhouses in that vicinity devoted to the same pur- 

 pose, while large supplies come from Nice and elsewhere. 

 Legarde, in 1776, had forced Roses under glass, and about 

 the year 1840 one cultivator had 50,000 Rose-trees in his 

 greenhouses. In 1S11 the Almanac des Roses, published in 

 Troyes, enumerated less than 200 varieties, only six of 

 which were remontant, while in the previous year no va- 

 rieties had been ticketed with their names in the Empress 

 Josephine's gardens at Malmaison. In 1829 a commercial 

 catalogue named 1,020 varieties. The Bengal Rose was 

 introduced from India about the year 1798, the Noisette 

 Rose from North America in 1814, and the Bourbon Rose 

 from the island of this name in 1 8 1 7 ; the Tea Rose, brought 

 from India to England in 1789, reached France about 

 twenty years later, and the hybrids were produced by 

 crossing these with the oriental species which had been 

 known since the days of antiquity. The Moss Rose, in- 

 troduced from England in 1807, was coaxed into a remon- 

 tant habit in France about the year 1828. The passion for 

 Orchids seems to have begun with the importation of the 

 first Dendrobiums from India in 18 12, and now some of 

 their finest flowers may be found in quantities even in the 

 public flower-markets of Paris. Conspicuous tropical plants 

 with colored foliage are of still more recent introduction. 

 Monsieur Baltet says that flowering plants of Hibiscus are 

 largely used by the city of Paris when its buildings are 

 decorated for public fetes ; and the fact is interesting, for, 

 although some of the finest species are natives of our own 

 southern states, we do not remember to have seen them 

 utilized for decoration in this country. Dahlias were sent 

 to France from Spain in 1802, not for their beauty, but with 

 the idea that their tubers would be valuable for food. But 

 they soon became favorites as ornamental plants : and the 

 desire to produce a blue-flowered variety became such a 

 craze that during the Irish famine of 1846 the Horticultural 

 Society of Dublin offered a prize of X 2 ) 000 for a blue 

 Dahlia. Without referring to the wonderful history of 

 the Gladiolus during the past twenty-five years, we may 

 add that the Lily-of-the-valley rivals the White Lilac in the 

 affection of Parisians. The local market is supplied by 

 3,000 greenhouses and hot-beds owned by 500 gardeners, 

 while flowers to the value of half a million francs are an- 

 nually grown in the suburbs of Paris alone. 



So wide was Monsieur Baltet's subject that it is no won- 

 der he devotes but a short chapter to the architecture of 

 gardens. What he says is historically instructive, espe- 



