16 THE PARKS AND GARDENS OF PARIS. [Chap. I. 



a third of their proper size. The result here deplored is not 

 owing to the soil or any other disadvantages of the site. Many 

 of the trees of Europe and America would attain their full 

 stature and dignity here if not crammed together in the way the 

 engineers seem to have decided that trees should grow. 



More noticeable still is the condition of the trees in the 

 wood itself generally. They loot as if France wished only to 

 grow coppice-wood for barrel-hoops in this her favourite park ! 

 Monotony reigns along all the main drives from this cause. There 

 is nothing to be seen but illimitable and impenetrable forests of 

 sticks and brambles. Why allow the trees to crowd each other 

 to death or starvation ? Thousands of Acacias and Oaks are 

 struggling for bare life, while by thinning them out those left 

 would form noble trees in good time. Where a wood of Pines 

 breaks the monotony, it looks like a deserted nursery — the trees 

 as close together as a plantation of saplings, and never thinned ! 

 These woods ought not only to be properly thinned, but spaces 

 cleared to give breadth and to relieve the eye. In these spaces 

 various noble aspects of tree-life might be easily developed. 

 There are other and better gardens than those that require the 

 mowing-machine. It is in such wide expanses of ground as this 

 that the tree-gardens of the future will be made, and not in the 

 narrow botanic gardens hitherto formed in Europe, Even all the 

 trees and shrubs native in France planted, not in any formal 

 order, but in ample groves and groups, would form features 

 which would be very beautiful and interesting, while valuable to 

 the country. And instead of bracken beneath and around these 

 trees, why not naturalise everywhere in the grass the beautiful 

 hardy herbaceous plants of France ? In such a way we might 

 form gardens requiring no perennial care, and which would 

 soon surpass in beauty the trimmest and most costly. 



The Gardens of the Acclimatisation /S^ocieiy.— Nowadays other 

 gardens than those avowedly botanical or horticultural often 

 claim attention from their gardening interest. In our own 

 Zoological Grardens there have for some years past been attractive 

 floral displays both in spring and summer. The warm tempera- 

 ture and light of some of the new houses afforded opportunities 

 for indoor gardening which were taken advantage of. This 

 desirable innovation might be carried out with advantage in many 



