CHAP. III. 



CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 



137 



Bernard de Jussieu, when he visited England in 1734, by the benevolent and 

 enlightened Peter ColHnson, who had raised some plants (of which he gave 

 Jussieu two) from cones brought from Mount Lebanon. The tree in the 

 Paris garden produces abundance of cones, and is considered the parent of all 

 the cedars in France : it would, no doubt, have attained a greater height, had 

 not the leading shoot been accidental!}^ broken off some years ago (the person 

 who showed it to us in 1815 said by the first shot fired against the Bastile), 

 since when it has increased only in breadth. 



Deleuze, who has given a history of the introduction of plants of ornament 

 into_ France, in the Annales du Museum, torn, viii., states that the taste for 

 foreign trees and shrubs passed from England into France ; but that the mode 

 of procuring them from the former country being found too expensive, a plan 

 was devised for importing them direct from America, At the head of this 

 design was the celebrated Du Hamel, who induced his friend. Admiral Galis- 

 sonniere, to send him several tons of seeds of trees and shrubs, gathered at 

 random in North America. These were sown on a large scale on Du Hamel's 

 estates at Le Monceau and Vrigny, and on those of his brother at Denain- 

 villiers. They succeeded perfectly, and the plants raised were so numerous, 

 that the botanists who afterwards examined them found among them se- 

 veral new species. The brother of Du Hamel the academician, who was 

 the proprietor of Denainvilliers, appears to have had the chief care of these 

 plantations. He also assisted his brother in the preparation of his works, and 

 especially in the Traite de la Culture des Terres. The Duke d'Ayen, after- 

 wards MarechaJ de Noailles, made an extensive plantation of exotics at St.Ger- 

 main en Laye, in which flowered, for the first time in France, some American 

 walnuts, and the Sophdra japonica. This park was open to all amateurs. It 

 was the Marechal de Noailles who persuaded Louis XA''. to estabhsh at 

 Trianon that botanic garden in which Bernard de Jussieu disposed, for the 

 first time,^ plants in families according to the natural orders of his system. 

 The marechal was one of the first four honorary members of the Linneean 

 Society of London. He died in 1793 at the age of 80 years. 



The Chevalier Jansen purchased in all the ports of Europe, and in foreign 

 countries, the trees which he hoped he could acclimatise in France; these he 

 planted in his garden at Chaillot, and afterwards distributed among botanists 

 and cultivators. On this spot, in Paris, adjoining the Barriere de Chaillot, 

 may still (1833) be seen superb trees, the seeds of which have produced many 

 others, which have been spread throughout France. That illustrious magis- 

 trate and philosopher, Lamoignon de Malesherbes, acclimatised on his estate 

 of Malesherbes a great number of foreign trees and shrubs : he was the first in 

 France to raise fruit trees from seeds on a large scale, in order to obtain new 

 varieties. The celebrated Lemonnier of Montreuil, near Versailles, the friend 

 of Andre Michaux, encom-aged the introduction of trees and shrubs more 

 than any of his contemporaries. He was the first patron of Michaux ; and 

 though, as a phj'sician, he was much occupied at court, he employed the greater 

 part of his income, and the whole of his leisure, in procuring rare treses and 

 plants for his garden at Montreuil. There, in a bottom of bog earth, he had 

 a multitude of different species of kalmia, azalea, rhododendron, and other 

 shrubs, among which rose up the superb stems of the Canadian lily. In the 

 shade of spruce firs, of acacias, of tulip trees, and of magnolias, grew the under- 

 shrubs of Lapland, of Siberia, and of the Straits of Magellan. His fortune and 

 his garden were much injared during the revolution; but he lived to see the 

 plants which he had introduced become common among his friends every- 

 where. He died at the age of 84 years. 



Through the kindness of M. Vilmorin we are enabled to notice the present 

 state of the different plantations mentioned or alluded to by Deleuze, and 

 of others made by different proprietors about the same period. The plant- 

 ations of Du Hamel were chiefly cut down, or otherwise destroyed, dai-ing the 

 revolution ; those of the physician Lemonnier, at Montreuil, were entirely de- 

 stroyed ; those at the Trianon remain, and contain some gaod specimens «f 



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