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EEPOKT ON THE 



It may be interesting to mention, that in the Gardens of the 

 Luxembourg, and Jardin des Plantes, the best collection of 

 fruit-trees in France, that of the Chartreux, was preserved ; and 

 also that from these gardens the sorts were obtained by the So- 

 ciety when the collection was forming for the Garden at Chis- 

 wick. This was the best source whence the identical varieties 

 described by the celebrated Duhamel could be obtained, as ap- 

 pears by a communication from M. Thouin, appended to a list 

 of grafts sent to the Society in 1820, and of which the following 

 is a translation : — 



" Various causes having prevented my worthy colleague, 

 M. Bosc, from taking off the grafts requested for the Horticul- 

 tural Society of London, from the nursery of the Luxembourg, 

 he begged of me to make the collection. This I undertook 

 with the greatest pleasure, as, in obliging my friend, I may also 

 render a useful service to an honourable body to whicli I am 

 proud to belong. 



" The Society may be assured that the names of the grafts 

 precisely correspond with the varieties described by Duhamel 

 (Traite des Arbres Fruitiers, Paris, 1768). The following are 

 the means which were employed, by which we are able to ac- 

 complish so important an object. 



" In 1793, when the question was agitated of suppressing the 

 monasteries, and placing their property at the disposal of the 

 State, foreseeing the destruction of the garden of the Chartreux 

 at Paris, and anxious to preserve to horticulture the originals 

 on whicli Duhamel had established his nomenclature, I begged 

 and obtained permission from the minister Roland to remove 

 whatever trees I pleased from the complete collection which 

 that garden contained. They were labelled according to the 

 Catalogue of the Chartreux, and transplanted in the garden of 

 the Museum, where they were arranged in such a way as to form 

 a school for the instruction of nurserymen, gardeners, country 

 gentlemen, and even botanists and physiologists. 



" The garden of the Chartreux was soon after destroyed ; there 

 remained no vestige of it ; and it was not till ten or twelve years 

 after, that it was re-established in the Luxembourg, by rooted 

 plants or grafts taken from our school of the Museum, in the 

 Jardin des Plantes. 



" On the formation of that school I invited Christopher Hervy, 

 gardener to the Chartreux, a man well informed on the subject 

 of fruit-trees, and who supplied Duhamel with a great portion 

 of his nomenclature, to make a general examination at the pe- 

 riods of the flowering and fruiting of the trees, to prove the 

 identity of the names of our varieties. This labour was pursued 

 during the first six years of our plantation in the school, in such 



