38 



WATERING THE PARKS. 



peatedly called the attention of the authorities during the 

 summer to the melancholy state into which the parks were 

 falling. The mischief we desired to guard against is now 

 done. The grass is of the colour of hay, and the little of 

 it that remains is being so rapidly trodden down that in 

 many parts what used to be greensward is now nothing 

 better than hard road.'' So wrote the Pall Mall Gazette, one 

 day last summer ; and really, about the end of July and 

 the beginning of August, nothing could look more unat- 

 tractive than the London parks. These parks are supported 

 at heavy public cost ; and it is a great mistake to let 

 them be rendered as brown and uninviting as the desert 

 by an exceptional drought, which of course will happen 

 at the very season when the grounds ought to be in per- 

 fect beauty and attractiveness. The French system of 

 watering gardens, &c., is excellent^ or at least the generally 

 adopted system; for at the Jardin des Plantes there are 

 yet watering-pots made of thick copper, which are worthy 

 of the days of Tubal Cain, but a disgrace to any more 

 recent manufacturer, and a curse to the poor men who 

 have to water with them. Generally Parisian lawns and 

 gardens are watered every evening with the hose, and most 

 eflFectively. It is so perfectly and thoroughly done, that 

 they move trees in the middle of summer with impunity; 

 keep the grass in the driest and dustiest parts of Paris as 

 green as an emerald, the softest and thirstiest of bedding 

 plants in the healthiest state; and as for the roads, the 

 way they are watered cannot be surpassed. They are kept 

 agreeably moist without being muddy, while firm and crisp 

 as could be desired. Of course all this is effected in the 

 first instance by having abundance of water laid on ; but 

 that is not all. With us, even where we have the water 

 laid on, we too often spend an immense amount of labour 

 in distributing it. In Paris generally it is applied with vari- 

 ous modifications of the hose, which pours a vigorous stream, 

 divided and made coarse or fine either by turning a cock, 

 by the finger, or even by the force of the water. 



This is the way they apply it to roads, the smaller bits of 

 grass about the Louvre, and other places ; but when water- 



