42 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



favoiite plants are the yew, the hornbeam, and the box j and for tall hedges, the lime 

 and elm. 



SuBSECT. 5. French Gardening, as empirically practised. 



1 92. The use of gardens is very general in France. Few cottagers are without them, 

 and in the northern districts, they commonly display a considerable degree of neatness, 

 and some fruit-trees and flowers. The southern parts of the country are the least civi- 

 lised; there the gardens of the laboring class are less attended to, and gourds or melons, 

 and Indian corn, as in Italy, are the chief articles grown. The gardens of the or- 

 dinary citizens and private gentlemen in France, are greatly inferior to those of the 

 same class in Holland or Britain ; they are seldom walled round, and rarely contain 

 any arrangements for foreign or tender exotics. A green-house, indeed, is a rare 

 sight, and there does not seem to exist the slightest desire for enjoying any vegetable 

 production eithei- earlier or later than their natural seasons. There are few wealthy 

 men in France at present, and consequently few first-rate gardens ; the best are in the 

 northern districts, and belong to princes of the blood, bankers, and other opulent citi- 

 zens. Those of the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, of Perigord, Laffite, and De- 

 laborde, may be included in this class ; though they are far inferior to many citizens' 

 seats and gardens in England. 



193. There are excellent market-gardens in the neighbourhood of Paris, where, by 

 force of manure and daily waterings, the oleraceous tribe are brought to a large size 

 and very succulent quality. Figs, for the market, are grown by a particular class of 

 fruit-growers at Argenteuil ; grapes at Fontainbleau, peaches at Montreuil, and cherries 

 at various villages to the east of Paris. There are numerous florists who devote 

 themselves exclusively to the culture of flowers, and supply the market with roses, 

 lilies, stocks, and the more common greenhouse plants and orange-trees. The latter are 

 very neatly grafted, and otherwise well managed. In the winter time forced flowers 

 are exposed for sale, and also summer flowers which have been dried in stoves, and 

 preserve their color perfectly. The same thing is done with aromatic herbs, and some 

 pot-herbs, as parsley, chervil, &:c. 



194. There are few nnrseries 'in France ; the best are at Paris, and are chiefly occupied 

 with the culture of fruit-trees and ornamental shrubs. They excel in the culture of the 

 rose, of which they have upwards of 300 sorts, which form, to a small extent, articles of 

 foreign commerce. The two best provincial nurseries are those of Audibert at Tonelle, 

 in Languedoc, and Sedi at Lyons. Vallet's at Rouen is celebrated for orange-trees, 

 and Calvert and Co.'s (Englishmen) at Bonne Nouvelle, near the same place, equally so 

 for roses ; Vilmorin is the agricultural seedsman, Noisette the Lee, and Cels of Mont 

 Rouge the Loddidge of Paris. France long supplied a great part of Europe with 

 fruit-trees, from the celebrated nursery of the fathers of the Chartreux, near the 

 Luxembourg, established in the time of Louis XIV. and including eighty acres. That 

 establishment does not now exist ; but Ville Herv^, the son nf its former manager, has 

 the care of the collection of fruit-trees and vines in the national garden of the Luxem- 

 bourg. The extensive collection of grapes in this garden was formed by Chaptal, the 

 celebrated chemist, when minister of the interior, with a view to ascertain the best sorts, 

 and distribute them in the provinces, and the fruit-trees were brought by the elder Herv^ 

 from the Chartreux. [Preface to the Catalogue of the Lnxembourg Garden, 1814 ; Cours 

 d" Agriculture, &c. art. Vigne.) When Blaikie went to France in 1776, there was not a 

 nursery for trees and shrubs in the kingdom. About Vitry only a few of such forest~trees 

 were cultivated as were used in avenues, and so few fruit-trees that the sorts were not 

 tallied ; the cultivators like the oraTnge nurserymen at Nervi (95.) recognising the few 

 sorts by the leaves and bark. 



1 95. The operative gardeners in France are, in general, very ignorant. Few of them 

 have learned their art by regular application, or the customary engagement of apprentice- 

 ship. At Paris they are poorly paid, and work much harder than the same class in 

 England. Evelyn, in 1644, informs us, that the work of the royal gardens was all done 

 in the night-time, and finished by six or seven in the morning, in order, no doubt, that 

 nothing offensive might meet the eyes of the great of these times. Happily such a chasm 

 does not now exist between the rich and the poor ; but still, partly for the same reason, 

 but principally to avoid the mid-day sun, the great part of the work, in most private 

 gardens, is performed from three to nine o'clock in the morning, and again from six to 

 nine in the evening. The great recommendation of a French gardener is, to be able to 

 conduct a garden ci bon marche ; and the greatest to prune trees d la Montrenil. 



196. Of artists in gardening [artistes jardiniers, architects des jardins,) there are a num- 

 ber in France, chiefly resident in Paris. Blaikie, already mentioned, and Gab. Thouin, 

 brother to the professor, and author of Plans Raisojines des Jardins, &c. (1818) may be 

 reckoned the most eminent. Girardin, Morel, and De Lille may be considered as liav- 



