S8S GARDENS OF VARIOUS NATIONS. 



praise ; the more so as our Government, by imitating its more culti- 

 vated parts, have greatly improved the parks of London. 



The Park of Monceau, which is in reality more a garden than a 

 park, and the grounds of St. Cloud, are also very beautiful specimens 

 of French gardens, and many others might likewise be enumerated as 

 existing at Paris, which either owed their origin to, or were greatly 

 improved by, the Emperor Napoleon III. Among the more ancient 

 and celebrated ones, I will only mention those of La Malmaison, 

 laid out in the English style by the Empress Josephine ; of Marly, 

 where it was once said that it never rained ; and the Jardin des Plantes, 

 so famous until the last unhappy war, not only as being the Zoolo- 

 gical Gardens of Paris, but also — until then — for the large collection 

 of orchids and other plants that were there grown. 



Let us now turn to our own country, and see whether the 

 same deep feeling for Nature is, as a people, imbued in us as it is 

 in the French. In England the first rudiments of the knowledge 



of horticulture were introduced by the Romans : most of which 



though the Saxons appear to have had herb-gardens — was lost amidst 

 the anarchy that ensued after the departure of the former people 

 from this isle. It was, however, resuscitated by the Normans. 

 In Domesday Book, one " apple-garden " is entered as being situated 

 at Nottingham, and the words horti and hortuli more than once 

 occur in that book. The vine must have been brought to this country 

 by the Romans : in the eighth century vineyards are spoken of by 

 Bede, and later, William of Malmesbury names Gloucestershire as 

 being the county where they were mostly cultivated. At Hatfield House 

 a part of the garden is called the Vinery to this day. In the twelfth 

 century, Alexander Necham, in his work "Naturis Rerum," gives 

 names of various trees which he says ought to be grown in a 

 " nobilis hortus :" but unfortunately many of these could not possibly 

 have been acclimatized in this country at that time; so that much 

 reliable information as to the real state of horticulture in England at 

 this early period cannot be obtained from this work. According to him, 

 a flower-garden should be stocked with roses, lilies, sunflowers, violets. 



