THE BOTANIC GARDEN IN, EEGBNt's PARK. 521 



ore. The display, of fruits and flowers takes place iil large tents 

 and marqufies, pitched on the lawn, and bands of music perform in 

 the gardens. All the elite of the West End of London are here ; for 

 in London, horticultural shows are even mpre fashhnahh than the 

 opera ; and a gayer or more beautiful sight is not easily found. At 

 the, last festival of this sort, the great novelty was a magnificent plat, 

 or garden of rhododendrons, of all colors ; the plants, in full bloom, 

 were large and finely-grown specimens, seiit beforehand from various 

 nursery gardens fifty or one hundred miles' off, planted here in a 

 scene by themselves, where they blootned in the same perfection as 

 if they had grown here for a dozen years. 



I was exceedingly gratified with this subscription garden, and 

 examined it in all its details with great attention. In its tasteful 

 arrangement, its mo'derate extent, its management and its position, it 

 afforded the finest possible type for a similar establishment near one 

 . of our largest cities. Here are eighteen acres of the most exquisite 

 lawn, pleasure-grounds, and conservatory, '^olly created and main- 

 tained by sixteen hundred individuals, ano^^oyed by, perhaps, five 

 or six thousand persons more — their friends at all times. Here is a 

 fine example , of the art of landscape-gardening, which, if it were 

 near New- York, Philadelphia, or Boston, so that it could be seen 

 by those who are anxious to learn, would have a great influence oh 

 the taste of the country in ornamentel gardening ; here is the most 

 perfect exhibition ground, for the shows of a horticultural. Society, 

 that can be in^agi^ed or devised ; and here is a scientific arrange- 

 inent of plants^ for the study of botanical and medical cksses,'^the 

 liviijg plants arranged according to the best sjfstem. Half the nioney 

 which has been paid annually into the credit account of the! ceme- 

 teriesof Greenwood, Mount Auburn, orLaurel Hill, would, keep up 

 in the very highest condition (as this garden is kept), one like it in 

 the neighborhood of any of our cities. And the precino)?. of the 

 Elysian fields, near Ifew-Yort — ^Brookline, near Boston — on the 

 banks of the Wissahicon, near Philadelphia, would be as fine loca- 

 lities for such subscription gai-dens as Regent's Paa-k i§ for- London. 

 If our citizens, who have the money, could come here and see what 

 it will do, expended in this way, I am sure they would not hesitate 

 to subscribe the " needful." : 



