Nature and Art, June 1, 1866.] 
THE PARIS EXHIBITION, 1867. 
23 
extent, for the exhibition of objects relating to 
natural history, agriculture, horticulture, acclima- 
tization, rural matters, and manufactures requiring 
a considerable space, isolation, or both. The pro- 
gramme includes an exhibition of horses, cattle, 
and domestic animals ; but, as breeders would be 
deterred by the long period of seven months — the 
Exhibition being announced to open on the first 
day of April, and to close on the last day of 
October, — it is arranged that animals may be 
exhibited for short periods only, and be replaced 
from time to time by others of the same 
class and from the same localities. The exhibition 
of living animals will therefore be permanent, 
while the animals themselves may be frequently 
renewed. Amongst other matters in this class 
which are likely to present peculiar attractions is 
the rearing and management of silkworms, in which 
the French and Italian departments will be, 
especially prominent ; and side by side with the 
insects of Europe will be shown those of India, 
China, and Japan, which feed on the leaves of the 
mulberry, oak, ailanthus (or Japan varnish tree, as 
it is erroneously called), jujube, and castor-oil 
plant. This portion of the Exhibition will be all 
the more interesting from the fact, that the 
Ailanthus and other worms, some of them as large 
as a man’s finger and exquisitely beautiful, will 
be seen in the open air, and may be studied 
as in a state of nature. Naturalists visiting the 
J ardin d’ Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne, and 
the experimental establishment of M. Guerin- 
Meneville at Vincennes, may have seen these 
creatures in their normal condition, but to the 
public generally the sight will be novel and 
interesting. 
As the production of honey and wax is one of 
the most universally extended occupations, the 
comparison of the various systems employed therein 
cannot fail to be suggestive. The honey of Hymettus 
has lost none of its celebrity, though more than 
two thousand years have rolled away since its 
praises were first sung. It figured at Kensington 
in 1851 ; perhaps the bees themselves may appear 
in the Champ de Mars next year. 
In Horticulture our neighbours, being at home, 
will have a great advantage over their visitors. 
The moment the ground can be prepared to receive 
them, the French gardeners and horticulturists, 
with the Imperial Societies of Agriculture and 
Horticulture at their head, will "lay out then- 
plantations and parterres ; and they have done so 
much of late in acclimatization of plants, and the 
floral decoration of public pleasure-grounds, that 
we may look for an extremely interesting exhibi- 
tion in this class on the French side. The system 
ot transplanting large trees, so successfully em- 
ployed by the late Sir Joseph Paxton, has been 
carried out to a great extent by the authorities of 
Paris, and there is no doubt that some daring feats 
of this kind will be exhibited in the planting of the 
ornamental portions of the Exhibition Park. 
We have been favoured with a view of the 
draft plans for the Horticultural Exhibition, to 
which one corner of the park, equal to about 
twelve acres in extent, has been devoted ; and we 
may mention that they include the great aqua- 
riums, about which some extraordinary statements 
have been made. The arrangement adopted falls 
little short of the rumours to which we refer. 
There are to be aquariums both for fresh and salt 
water fish, and each will be connected with a 
cascade, which in the former case will serve to 
aerate the water to be pumped back into the aqua- 
rium. The tanks are to be of great size, and to bo 
so constructed that the public may pass beneath 
them, and thus view the fish from below as well as 
above. The management of the horticultural 
portion of the Exhibition is entrusted to M. 
Barrillet Deschamps, the chief gardener of the 
city of Paris, and it could not be in better hands. 
We are glad to find that the British liorticul- 
turists have accepted the invitation of the 
Imperial Commission, and will co-operate with 
their French brethren in this interesting section 
of the Universal Exhibition. 
Model farm-buildings, cottages, and rural con- 
s tractions of all kinds, will be encouraged in every 
possible way, and it would be disgraceful to 
England and Scotland did they not take up a 
prominent position in this class. They have not, 
perhaps, very much to learn of others in this depart- 
ment ; but, to put the matter on the lowest ground, 
it would be doing an injustice to Great Britain not 
to let the world at large see how much economic 
science and philanthropy combined have effected 
for the well-being, moral as well as material, of her 
agricultural class, which is perhaps the best fed, the 
best housed, and the best provided for in every way, 
in all Europe. If in one corner of the Exhibition 
Park there be not a model English farm, and a model 
English cottage or two, with rose-clad porch and 
garden-patch — things scarcely known on the Con- 
tinent — one chance of correcting an error that 
exists pretty generally abroad respecting the habits 
of our island will be lost. We are looked upon 
as the most matter-of-fact people in Europe, and 
it would be well that our neighbours should know 
that the rural districts of England are as remark- 
able for the production of ornamental flowers as 
for that of heavy crops. 
A variety of the most important national 
industries dependent upon agriculture, besides 
those already mentioned, will, of course, be repre- 
sented. The French department will, doubtless, 
be highly attractive in this respect, and will 
include model establishments connected with the 
manufacture of wine, the production of sugar from 
beetroot and other substances, sugar-refining, 
brewing, distillation, the extraction of perfumes, 
the manufacture of fancy soaps, the preparation 
of fecula, maccaroni, vermicelli, and other processes 
for the preservation and preparation of food, to 
which 9 hemical science has been largely applied by 
our neighbours. 
The river Seine will flow past the door of the 
Exhibition, and a canal is now being constructed 
in the future park for the supply of water for 
