70 Le Jardin Fleuriste de la Ville de Tarts. 



house is devoted to a particular species or variety in much request, 

 the visitor may see the state of the stock by simply traversing 

 the passage, and looking through the glass dividing it from the 

 houses. 



But though the ordinary dwarf bedding plants are preserved in 

 vast quantities both in the frames and these houses, it is not the 

 cheapest way in which they do things here, as we shall presently 

 see. You have heard of the grand and graceful use made of the 

 Cannas in Parisian gardening. These are preserved in a most 

 efficient way in caves under the garden. When the stone is taken 

 out of the ground for building purposes, an odd rough propping 

 column is left here and there, and thus wide and spacious cellars of 

 equable temperature are thus left underground. They are in this 

 case about seven feet high, and are used as a great store for plants 

 that may be well preserved without light in the winter. You 

 descend by a sloping tan-covered passage, and ten to one but you 

 imagine yourself in a large potato store immediately you get down, 

 even if you are acquainted with horticulture. I did, and was it any 

 wonder, when heaps of different kinds of Canna, and those by no 

 means common kinds with us, were spread upon the floor a yard or 

 more deep, and twenty feet long ? The " tubers" of some of the 

 large varieties were from five to ten inches long, and the men were 

 turning them over just as they would the contents of a series of 

 potato-pits. Here too in wide masses against the wall are arrayed 

 quantities of Aralia papyrifera, the handsome and much grown 

 species so useful for "subtropical gardening." It seems in perfectly 

 firm and safe condition, growing in this dark, or rather gas-lighted 

 climate, and sends out long blanched leaves of a delicate lemon 

 colour, which will of course soon acquire a healthy green when 

 the plants are placed in the open air. Thus they preserve Aralia 

 papyrifera in all sizes, and this fine thing is turned out for garden 

 embellishment almost as cheap as wallflowers. Of course ana- 

 logous protection could be given to such things in many English 

 gardens where space may be limited, and much expense out of the 

 question. In these caves were also preserved Brugmansias, 



