THE PUBLIC NURSERIES FOR TREES, SHRUBS, ETC. 155 



passing round tlie interior^ so that, while space is not cur- 

 tailed, the van is efficiently heated, and tender plants can 

 be conveyed by it in safety in the depth of winter. 



Students of all nations are admitted to this establishment. 

 They must be eighteen years of age, and must have spent 

 some time in practical horticulture. Their pay is sixty francs 

 per month during the first three months, seventy during 

 the second, and after that eighty or eighty-five francs per 

 months after which they are paid according to capacity 

 and intelligence. They are changed from section to section 

 of the establishment, so as to study with profit each kind 

 of culture. An extensive botanical library has lately been 

 added for the use of the officers and students of this establish- 

 ment, and is now being catalogued and arranged. It con- 

 tains nearly all the standard English books on horticulture ; 

 indeed quite half the books are English. 



Attached to the Jardin Fleuriste are a forge, a carpenter^s 

 shop, a glazier^s and painter^s shop, stables, and other offices. 

 These are of course indispensable where economy is ne- 

 cessary ; and saving money is a consideration even for the 

 city of Paris at present. The mode of glazing with several 

 strips of lead-paper laid one over the other, as practised 

 here, is too expensive to be recommended : it costs as much 

 as the glass itself, and after all peels off after a time. It is 

 known as the couvre-joint metallique of Celard, 16, Rue du 

 Faubourg du Temple. 



The Public Nurseries for Trees, Shrubs, and Hardy 

 Flowers. — The nursery for trees for the boulevards is situated 

 at Petit Bry, near Nogent-sur-Marne — a somewhat out-of- 

 the-way place. The nearest railway station to the nursery 

 is that of Nogent-sur-Marne, on the Strasbourg line. It 

 consists of nearly forty -five acres, entirely devoted to the 

 raising of the commoner and more useful kinds of trees for 

 avenue and boulevard planting. On entering it the first 

 peculiarity that strikes the visitor is, that the whole of the 

 surface of the ground is thrown into ridges nearly six 

 feet in width, on the apex of which the trees are planted. 

 This arrangement is adopted in consequence of the ground 

 being occasionally flooded by the river Marne, which is close 



