CHAPTER III. 



Le Jar din Fleuriste de la Ville de Paris. 



I HIS, the great nursery and propagating garden for the 

 tender plants employed for the decoration of such of the 

 parks and gardens as belong to the city, and also for de- 

 corating the H6tel de Ville on festive occasions, is so very remark- 

 able an establishment, that no excuse is needed for publishing a de- 

 scription of it. In Paris of recent years the naaking of vi&fi gardens 

 has had as much attention as the pulling down of old streets, and 

 the richness and extent of the collections in this establishment are 

 quite astonishing even to visitors from our own great gardens. In 

 addition to La Muette — the name by which the establishment at 

 Passy, that I am about to describe, is generally known — there 

 are two other establishments for the supply of the city witli plants 

 —one for trees and shrubs in the Bois de Boulogne, and the other 

 for herbaceous plants, &c., in the Bois de Vincennes. It should 

 also be remarked that it is only for the supply of the gardens of the 

 Ville — as distinguished from those of the State. The gardens of the 

 Tuileries, Luxembourg, at the Museum, &c., grow tlieir own 

 supplies. 



Imagine yourself prepared to visit a " propagating establishment," 

 and then ushered into a magnificent span-roofed curvilinear camellia 

 house — quite a grand conservatory of camellias — and in connexion 

 with it on one side a great conservatory filled with Aralias, Yuccas, 

 Beaucarneas, tree ferns, Nicotianas, Dasylirions, Dracaenas, and a 



