88 



MONTPELIER. 



told me that there was a similar collection of vines at 

 Versailles and there was also one at Genoa. 



All this day was employed in attaching the tickets to 

 the vines, and arranging them in bundles, which, from 

 many of them being very crooked, was no easy task. 

 From the 560 varieties I could only make up 437, the 

 remainder being either wanting in the original, or marked 

 as identical with some previous number. I had also 

 employed the master gardener to send a man, on whose 

 judgment and honesty he could depend, to make a collec- 

 tion of all the vines cultivated in the vineyards round 

 Montpelier. This man had all his lifetime been employed 

 in the vineyards, and as he gave me a description of the 

 qualities of each, I had no doubt whatever that his col- 

 lection might be depended upon. Rejecting from those 

 he brought me, such varieties as I had previously pro- 

 cured at Perpignan, I was now enabled to carry the 

 collection of vines of Rousillon and Languedoc, or 

 Pyrenees Orientales and Herault to 38. I here again 

 reduced the number of Mr. Durand's vines, taking only 

 IS of each of them, as well as of those cultivated in the 

 neighbourhood of Montpelier. When I came to pay for 

 their carriage from Montpelier to Nismes, I had no 

 reason to regret this reduction. 



Wednesday/, 30th November. — It was half-past 10 this 

 morning, when the packing of the vines was finished, 

 and at 11 o'clock I started with them by the Diligence 

 for Nismes. Before leaving the garden I paid a farewell 

 visit to its liberal Director, Mr. Delisle. I now received 

 from him a letter addressed to Mr. Frazer, the Colonial 

 Botanist, at Sydney, and also one for myself. In both 

 he expressed his wish to maintain a correspondence with 

 Sydney, to reciprocate the exchange of seeds and plants. 



