CHAP. III. 



CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 



143 



press Josephine, to spread a taste for exotic trees and shrubs, and the form- 

 ation of ornamental plantations. He was born in 1746, at the Chateau de 

 Courset in the Haut Boulonnais. After having received an excellent educa- 

 tion, he entered the army at the age of 17 years, and was soon after sent on duty 

 to Languedoc, where the plants of the Pyrenees gave birth to his enthusiastic 

 taste for botany. In V/S'i he left the army, and devoted himself wholly to 

 the improvement of his estate at Courset, M'here, in a short time, he formed 

 by far the richest collection of plants in France, and created an establishment 

 which ranked at that time with the gardens of Malmaison, Kew, &c. In an 

 arid chalky soil, so unproductive as to be called a desert, M. Du Mont created 

 an excellent kitchen-garden, a large orchard, and an ornamental garden de- 

 voted to the culture of foreign plants. These gardens will be found described 

 in the Annates de la Societe d' Horticulture dc Paris, torn. xiv. ; and in the Gar- 

 denei-'s Magazine, vol. xii., from our personal inspection. It may be sufficient 

 to state, that, though these gardens do not display fine turf, water, or fine 

 gravel, yet they are of intense interest in point of culture; and that the col- 

 lection of hardy trees and shrubs, which have attained a considerable size, is 

 not surpassed by any in the neighbourhood of London, in regard to the 

 number of species which it contains. The collection of herbaceous plants is 

 formed into a series of concentric beds. The trees and shrubs are disposed 

 'in groups, according to the season of the year at which they flower, as sug- 

 gested by Du Hamel; but these groups are so thinly planted that room is left 

 for each tree and shrub to acquire its natural size and form. There is an ex- 

 tensive collection of fruit trees, including all the varieties that could be pro- 

 cured in Europe and America. The peat-earth plants are numerous, as are 

 the hot-house and green-house plants. The hot-houses are 200 ft. and the 

 pits 150 ft. in length. In the year 1789 M. Du Mont visited the principal 

 gardens in the neighbourhood of London, and, on his return to his family, was 

 immediately arrested and imprisoned by the government ; but he was as 

 promptly set at liberty through the influence with the Conunittee of Public 

 Safety of his friend, the celebrated Professor Thouin. M. Du Mont pub- 

 lished various articles in the public journals of his day; but his principal 

 work is the Botaniste Cultwaicur, or Descriptioti, Culture, and Use of the greater 

 Part of the Plants, Foreign and Indigenous, which are cultivated in France and 

 England, arranged accorcUng to the Method of Jussieu, which appeared in five 

 volumes, 8vo, in 1802, and to which two supplementary volumes have since 

 been added. This work has had the same celebrity in France that Miller^ s 

 Bictionary has had in England. M. Du Mont died in June, 1824, at the age 

 of 78 years ; his estate is now the property of his daughter, Madame la 

 Baronne Mallet de Coupigny, who has presented the green-house and hot- 

 house plants (with the exception of the pelargoniums) to the Societe d" Agri- 

 culture de Boulogne, but who cultivates the collection of hardy articles, and 

 more especially the trees and shrubs, with the greatest care. The place is 

 visited by gardeners, botanists, and naturalists from every part of the world; 

 and no name in France is mentioned with greater respect than that of the 

 patriarch De Courset. 



Sect. 11, Of the Indigenous and Foreign Trees and Shrubs of Holland 

 and the Netherlands. 



The indigenous trees and shrubs of Belgium and Holland are very few, 

 partly from the limited extent of territory, but chiefly from the great uni- 

 formity of the surface, the soil, and the climate. The only Flora which has 

 been attempted of Belgium is that of Lejeune and Courtois (reviev/ed in Gard, 

 .Mag., vol.x. p. 449.), of which only a part has been published. Holland can 

 hardly be said to have an indigenous ligneous flora ; but into that country 

 foreign trees and shrubs were introduced as soon as they were into any other 

 in Europe. The botanic garden of Leyden, and its earliest catalogues, may be 

 referred to as a proof of this ; but for its history, and for various details re- 



