The Public Gardens and Parks of Paris. 99 



Here the annuals are regularly raised and put out j the ground is 

 kept perfectly free from filth, and it is, in fact, the best place I have 

 ever seen to become acquainted with useful plants. Such arrange- 

 ments well done, and hidden oflF by judicious planting from the 

 general verdant and chief area of any of our great public gardens, 

 would be of the greatest service. The ground is thrown into beds 

 about six feet wide, and each kind is allotted six feet run of the bed. 

 The sweet potato is grown here, as indeed are all interesting plants 

 that may be grown in the open air. Such readers as care about 

 this root, which by the way is of agreeable flavour when well 

 cooked, may grow it most readily and effectively by placing it in 

 a frame or pit after the spring crop has been taken out ; or, indeed, 

 on a ridge like the ridge cucumber ; but the pit or frame is the safest 

 way generally — the lights being taken off. As pits and frames are 

 frequently empty from about the ist of June till autumn, room 

 might be readily spared for it without loss, and a useful vegetable 

 added to our stock, which is yet in want of variety, fine as it is. 

 The roots may be bought in Covent Garden. The red variety is 

 the best. The way to treat them is to pot them about the end of 

 April ; start them in a gentle heat, and have them fresh and stubby 

 for planting out in the pit or frame about the ist of June. They 

 would be the better for the lights for a few days. In this way they 

 will be found to do better than when grown in a stove, and pro- 

 bably prove a more grateful vegetable than the Chinese yam in its 

 best state. Below this arrangement, and near the river end of the 

 garden, is another very interesting division. It is chiefly devoted to 

 medicinal and useful plants of all kinds, arranged in a distinct way. 

 First we have the Sorghums, Millets, Wheats, and Cereals generally 

 — afl plants cultivated for their grains or seeds. Then come plants 

 cultivated for their stems, from Polymnia eduUs to UUucus tuberosus. 

 Next we have the chief species and varieties of Onion, such plants 

 as Urtica utilis, the Dalmatian Pyrethrum rigidum, and in a word 

 almost everything likely to interest in this way, from Lactuca 

 perennis to the esculent Hibiscus. Here again the plants are well 

 named and kept clear and distinct, each having full room to develope. 



