344 HORTICULTiHIAL TOUR. 



ed to Sir Charles Stewart, a letter of recommendation from 

 His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch*. We were all intro- 

 duced to His Excellency, who conversed some time with 

 us on the state of horticulture in France, and particularly 

 called our attention to the royal establishments for rearing 

 young fruit-trees at the Luxembourg and the Roule. He 

 expressed his confident expectation, that we would receive 

 full permission from the French Government to enter and 

 inspect these and the other royal gardens. 



English Ambassador's Garden. 



AVe may here notice, that the garden immediately be- 

 hind the Ambassador's house was dressed very neatly in 

 the French style, Sir Charles having in his employment a 

 French gardener. Great use is made of the rampant, but 

 showy Cobbea scandens. Along the side of the walks are 

 placed, at intervals, a number of boxes, about a foot and 

 a half square, and painted green ; each containing two 

 plants of the cobbea. These are trained to upright posts ; 

 and when the shoots overtop their supports, which they spee- 

 dily do, they are passed in festoons, in opposite directions, 

 from post to post. These wreaths, now richly adorned with 

 the large bell-shaped flowers, produced a very elegant ap- 

 pearance. The cobbea, we find, is treated at Paris as an 

 annual plant; being sown, in March, on a hot-bed, and plant- 

 ed out in the end of April. Owing to the bright and warm 

 summer, it produces its first blossoms early enough to ensure 

 ♦he ripening, annually, of a sufficient supply of seeds. 



Having been joined by Mr Atkin, engineer, one of Mr 

 JI,i\\ Scoto-Gallican friends, originally from East Lothian, 



• Tli' ]•<!( Duke, who Hied at Lisbon in 181 ?>. 



