THE PARC DES BUTTES CHAUMONT. 



65 



New Holland, and greenhouse plants : it is T^^ortliy of 

 being extensively used with us, and Indigofera floribunda 

 should be everywhere used as a flower-garden wall plant. 

 There is not much in the summer decoration of the place 

 that is worthy of note. Some kinds of Cannas in flower 

 look almost as showy as beds of Gladioli, but their real 

 value will always be greatest as fine-leaved ornaments. 

 The common artichoke was very efi'ective in one spot as 

 ^ an isolated specimen of a " foliage plant/' nothing 

 being finer than the nobly formed silvery leaves of this 

 plant. Indeed, there is nothing to surpass it among sub- 

 jects suited for single specimens on the green grass. A 

 well-developed example would be sufficient in a private 

 garden ; and if nobody else plants it, schools of art would 

 find it to their advantage to have a specimen of it some- 

 where near at hand. 



The Pare des Buttes Chaumont was made on the site of 

 old and abandoned j)laster quarries. It forms a curvilinear 

 triangle, having an area of nearly forty-five acres included 

 between the Eue de Crimee and two boulevards running 

 between Belleville and Puebla. Before the park was made, 

 the ground, which was divided by the Chemin de Fer de 

 Ceinture and the Eue Fessard, was an arid wilderness of 

 clay mounds and of excavations left by the quarrymeu, 

 many of which were so deep as to form miniature pre- 

 cipices. It was proposed to turn this waste into a public 

 promenade by taking advantage of the natural irregularities 

 of the ground, by forming paths, laying turf, and making a 

 piece of water. To obtain this result, the natural hollows of 

 the ground in the part nearest to Paris were deepened, paths 

 leading to the top of the hills and mounds were laid down, 

 the general surface was made more regular and covered 

 with garden earth and flower-beds, and plantations were 

 formed where necessary. The improvements made were of 

 an important character only as far as it was necessary 

 to bring the boundary of the park into harmony with the 

 Boulevard de Ceinture, which runs through a trench nearly 

 sixty feet deep. The other portion of the park, in which 

 are situated the cutting through which the Chemin de Fer de 



