Book I. 



GARDENING IN FRANCE. 



41 



period of horticultural history, with the exception of the sea-cale and the potatoe. In 

 salading and legumes they far excel most countries ; but in the cabbage tribe, turnips, 

 and potatoes, they are inferior to the moister climates of Holland and Britain. 



187. ' A sort of forcing seems to have commenced in France towards the end of the 

 sixteenth century. B^nard informs us, that arcades open to the south were first erected 

 in Henry IVth's time, for accelerating the growth of pease at St. Germains en Laye ; 

 and that, in the end of the reign of Louis XIV., Fagon, at the Jardin des Plantes, 

 constructed some hot-houses with glass roofs, which he warmed with stoves and furnaces 

 for the preservation of tender plants; and which gave rise to all the hand-glasses, frames, 

 and hot-houses subsequently erected in France. Melons and early cucumbers had been 

 hitherto grown on beds of dung, and covered at night with loose straw; early salading 

 was raised in pots and boxes exposed to the sun during day, and placed in sheds or 

 arbors during night. But Richard Senior, observing what Fagon had done, built for 

 himself at St. Germains, and afterwards for Louis XV. at Trianon, hot-houses, in which 

 were seen, for the first time in France, peaches, cherries, plums, strawberries, bearing 

 fruit in the depth of winter. In the Ecole Potagere, written by Combles about the year 

 1750, are the details relative to these buildings. There is still, however, very little 

 forcing in France, and almost none in the market-gardens. Pease, potatoes, asparagus, 

 kidney-beans, salads, &c., are seldom or never forwarded by other means than by plant- 

 ing in warm situations under south walls, and grapes or peaches are never covered with 

 glass. Melons and seedling plants of different sorts are forwarded by beds of dung, 

 generally without the addition of sashes and frames. 



188. French horticulture received a grand accession of theoretical and practical know- 

 ledge from the writings of Quintinye. Jean de Quintinye was born at Poictiersin 1626, 

 put to school among the Jesuits, took lessons in law, and afterwards travelled to Italy 

 with Tambonneau. Here his taste for agriculture began, or greatly increased. He 

 applied to its study as a science, and, on his return, Tambonneau committed his gardens 

 to his care. He attracted the attention of the court soon afterwards, and was made 

 director of several of the royal gardens during the reign of Louis XIV. He laid out a 

 jardin potager of thirty acres at Versailles ; the inhabitants of which, Neill observes, 

 seem to have imbibed from him a taste for horticulture and botany, the " Confreres 

 de St. Fiacre," (the tutelar saint of horticulturists,) or gardener's lodge, held here^ 

 being the oldest in France. (Hort. Tour, 4:14.) Among other works, Quintinye wrote 

 The comj^lete Gardener, translated by Evelyn, and abridged by London and Wise. He 

 died in 1701. After his death the king always spoke of him with regret, and Switzer 

 says, assured his widow, that the king and she were equally sufferers. Quintinye, in 

 his work on fruit-trees, has developed a system of pruning, which has not yet been 

 surpassed by that of any other author. Before his time the culture of wall, or espalier 

 trees, was little attended to ; gardens had been generally surrounded by high hedges, but 

 for these were now substituted walls of masonry, or of earth en pise. The pruning of 

 peach and pear trees is now well understood in France, and horticulture on the whole is 

 making rapid advances. 



SuBSECT. 4. French Gardening, in respect to the j^lctnting of Timber-trees and Hedges. 



189. Planting for jiroft has never been extensively ^^'''^^^ti^^d in France, owing to the 

 abundance of natural forests in every part of the kingdom. These forests were much 

 neglected till within the last thirty years ; but they are now (being mostly national pro - 

 perty ) under a more regular course of management ; their limits defined by fences, and 

 the blanks filled up from the national nurseries. The roads of France being also kept 

 up by government, much attention is paid to lining them with rows of trees. In 

 some places, as in Alsatia, the walnut, cherry, apple, pear, and other fruit-trees are used ; 

 in other districts the elm, oak, or poplar, are employed ; and in the south, we frequently 

 find the mulberry, arid sometimes the olive. The resinous tribe are rarely planted but 

 for ornament ; the oak, elm, beech, and Spanish chestnut, are the chief sorts used to fill 

 up blanks in the natural forests. 



190. The idea of cultivating and naturalising foreign trees in France was first pro- 

 jected by Du Hamel in the time of Louis XV. He procured many seeds from 

 America, raised them in tlie royal nurseries, and distributed them among his friends. 

 A vast plantation of exotic tree s was "then made at St. Germains en Laye by the 

 Mareschal de Noailles. Lamoignon naturalised on his estate at Malsherbes a great 

 number of these trees, and at the age of eighty -four, Deleuze obsei-ves, saw every where 

 in France plants of his own introduct'on. 



191. Hedges are not in general u^e in France; the plants employed in field-hedges, 

 in the northern parts, are the liaw horn, birch, or a mixture of native shrubs, as 

 hazel, briar, laburnum, &c. In Lai guedoc the most common plant is the wild pome- 

 granate. In ornamental hedges t' ey have attained great perfection ; for these the 



