blossom, a most surprising instance of skill and industry at this season of the year. Mr. Ward's was as rich in beautiful and choice exotics. Mr. D. Laidler exhibited a fine seedling auricula, which he named Miss Dunn. A magnificent specimen of that curious parasitical plant, the mistletoe (Viscum álbum), was exhibited by Mr. Joseph Cooke, gardener to Miss Simpson, Bradley Hall; and a beautiful dish of kidneybeans from the garden of Armorer Donkin, Esq., Jesmond. Upon the whole, we never saw so excellent an exhibition at this season of the year. (Newcastle Courant, April 17.)

DEVONSHIRE.

Exeter Florists' Society. -The First Exhibition for the season of this Society took place on April 15., at Exeter. The flowers were fine specimens of the auricula and polyan. thus tribes, and in numbers sufficient to show the industry bestowed on, as well as delight taken in, the culture of elegant flowers of these descriptions by the members. The Exhibition, which was open to the public generally, was most flatteringly attended, many members of the Devon and Exeter Botanical and Horticultural Society honouring it with their presence. The prizes on this occasion were five in number; and awarded, the first for auriculas, to Mr. Samuel Haycraft, for a fine specimen of Wild's Lord Bridport; the first for polyanthuses, to Mr. Charles Reynolds, David's Hill. The members of the Society afterwards dined, and spent a convivial evening together. Their next Exhibition will be of pinks and carnations. (Country Times, April 26.)

AYRSHIRE.

The Ayrshire Green-house Society held their Competition for hyacinths, auriculas, fruits, vegetables, &c., at Kilmarnock, on April 22., when the prizes were awarded as follows:

Flowers. Hyacinths, Single Red: 1. Herstelde Vreda, Mr. John Brown, Kilmarnock ; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles, Kilmarnock. Double Red: 1. Bouquet Tendre, or Waterloo, Mr. J. Brown; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles. Single White: 1. Grand Vainquer, Mr. John Brown; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles. Double White: 1. Prins Van Waterloo, Messrs. Dykes and Gentles; 2. Mr. John Brown. Single Blue: 1 Vulcan, Messrs. Dykes and Gentles; 2 Mr. John Brown. Double Blue: 1. Lord Wellington, Mr. John Brown; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles. Yellow : 1. La Pure d'Or, Messrs. Dykes and Gentles; 2. Mr. John Brown. Auriculas, Green-edged : Warris's Blucher, Clough's Dolittle, Cockup's Eclipse, Mr. John Brown. Grey-edged: Camp. bell's Robert Burns, Kenyon's Ringleader, and Butterworth's Lord Hood, Mr. John Brown. White-edged: 1. Taylor's Incomparable, Pott's Regulator, Lec's Bright Venus, Mr. John Brown; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles. Self, or Alpine: King of the Alps, Mr. John Brown. Polyanthus : 1. Manners's Lady Ann Hamilton, Pearson's Alexander, Coxe's Prince Regent, Turner's England's Defiance, Stead's Telegraph, Mr. John Brown; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles; 3. Mr. Robert Purvis, gardener to John Smith Cunningham, Esq., Caprington. Polyanthus Narcissus: Bazelman Major, Soleil d'Or, and Staaten General, Mr. John Brown. - Fruit. Apples, preserved, four sorts: 1. Norfolk Paradise, Ribston Pippin, Yorkshire Greening, and Scarlet Nonpareil, Mr. James Young, gardener to James Fairlie, Esq., Holms; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles; 3. Mr. Robert Purvis.- Culinary Vegetables. Sea-kale: 1. Mr. Robert Purvis; 2. Mr. James Young. Parsneps: 1. Mr. Robert Röger, Kilmarnock; 2. Messrs. Dykes and Gentles; 3. Mr. Robert Purvis.

Of extra-articles, some very fine preserved apples of crop 1828, in a good state of preservation, radish, lettuce, and parsley, by Mr. Robert Purvis. Radish, Mr. James Young. Pyrus japónica, Messrs. Dykes and Gentles. Trillium grandiflorum, Messrs. Fowley and Symburn, Kilmarnock, A number of Auriculas, and a fine seedling Polyanthus, Mr. John Morton, Kilmarnock; and a great variety of polyanthuses, auriculas, and primroses, &c., by Mr. John Brown. - A Subscriber. Kilmarnock, April 24. 1820.

DIED, at his house near Glasgow, on the 14th of March, in his 76th year, Robert Austin, Esq., to the great grief of all his family. He passed some years in his early life at the royal botanic gardens at Kew, with the late Mr. Aiton, with whose family a sincere and reciprocal friendship has ever since subsisted. In the councils of the city of Glasgow, of which he was many years a member, his conduct as a magistrate received the approbation and esteem of his coadjutors and fellow-citizens. In his profession of a nurseryman, no man was more respected- not more for his scientific attainments and general knowledge, than for the suavity of manner and the glee and good-humour which he contributed so largely in society. To the young gardeners he was a steady friend, always ready with his advice to guide them and push them forward in the world without pride or ostentation; in short, those only who had the advantage of his acquaintance can duly appreciate his value. W. M. London, April 25. 1830.

THE

GARDENER'S MAGAZINE,

AUGUST, 1830.

PART I.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

ART. I. Notes and Reflections made during a Tour through Part of France and Germany, in the Autumn of the Year 1828. By the CONDUCtor.

(Continued from p. 12.)

Or the public gardens of Paris, the first, in point of importance, because a garden of instruction as well as of entertainment, is the Jardin des Plantes. The Garden of Alfort belongs to the same class, but is of a very inferior order. The Gardens of the Luxembourg and of the Tuilleries are public gardens of recreation; the Bois de Boulogne is a park of recreation; and the Garden of Sceaux, and some others that we shall enumerate, may be styled gardens of festivity.

The Jardin des Plantes dates its origin from the beginning of the seventeenth century; but, as a school of botany and vegetable culture, was made what it is by the late Professor Thouin, during the first years of the consulship. Speaking with reference only to what concerns plants and their culture, this garden is unquestionably the first establishment of the kind in Europe. We have in Britain several botanic gardens, but none maintained for the same objects as that of Paris. These objects are two: first, to collect useful or remarkable plants from every part of the world, and to distribute them to every part of France, and, as far as practicable, to every other country; and, secondly, to form a perpetual school of botany and vegetable culture.

We shall not describe this garden here, having done so in our Encyclopædia of Gardening; but, as English travellers are in

the habit of comparing it with Kew, with which it has scarcely one thing in common, and of giving the latter the preference because it has a more extensive collection of plants, we shall briefly point out the manner in which the avowed objects of the Paris garden are proposed to be obtained.

Plants are brought to the Paris garden from all countries, by a universal correspondence, by particular naturalists sent out at the expense of the nation, and by the general protection and favour of government to the objects of science and the pursuits of scientific men. Objects of natural history destined for the Paris garden, in whatever description of vessels they may arrive in a French port, pay no entrance duty, and they are mostly forwarded by government conveyances to Paris free of expense. Every warlike, exploring, or commercial expedition is accompanied by naturalists officially appointed or voluntarily admitted, to whom every facility is afforded in the objects of their pursuit. Plants received in the Paris garden are propagated without loss of time, and distributed, in the first place, to all the botanic gardens of France, of which there is at least one in the capital of every department; next, seeds or plants are sent to such of the colonies as it is supposed may profit most from them; and, lastly, they are sent to foreign correspondents, in proportion to similar favours received, or returns expected. The departmental botanic gardens propagate with all rapidity the plants received from the central garden, and distribute them among the eminent proprietors and cultivators of the department. This, at all events, is remarkably good in theory.

A

Botany is taught by the lectures, demonstrations, and herborisations of a professor, and illustrated by an exemplification of 124 orders of the Jussieuean system in living plants. considerable number of these plants are necessarily exotic, and kept under glass during winter; but, in May, before the demonstrations begin, they are brought out in the pots, and sunk in the earth in their proper places in the systematic arrangement, with their names and the names of the orders to which they belong placed beside them.

The cultivation of vegetables, and all the different operations of agriculture and gardening, are taught by another professor, with assistants, and exemplified by different compartments in the garden. For instance, there is one compartment in which all the different operations on plants and on the soil are exemplified, from the different modes of preparing the soil for sowing or planting, through all the species and varieties of propagation, training, and pruning, even to hedgegrowing and fence-making; another compartment contains

all the plants of field culture; another all the medicinal plants; another all the principal timber trees; another, as far as practicable, all the fruit trees. Specimens of the different implements are kept in one building, and of the principal soils, manures, and composts in an appropriate enclosure; and so on. The essence of the lectures, accompanied by figures of such of the implements and operations as admit of representation by lines, will be found in Thouin's Cours de Culture et de Naturalisation des Végétaux, by Oscar Leclerc, 3 vols. 8vo, with one quarto volume of plates; and a complete description of the garden is given in the well known work of Rover.

We have no public garden in Britain which makes any pretension to so many objects, and therefore we cannot estimate the merits of the Paris garden by a specific comparison. Kew has no more relation to it than the botanic garden of any private gentleman or university. But we may estimate the general merits of the Paris garden, as an institution, with reference to institutions of the same class in this country; and, in this view, its comparative comprehensiveness and utility at once claim for it a decided preference. The greatest national establishments of this kind in Europe, next to that in Paris, we suppose to be those of Berlin; but, as the gardening institution there is a public association, apart from the public botanic garden, a specific comparison cannot be made. At Florence

there are a professorship of culture, and a garden of examples of operations and plants; but the latter is very limited and imperfect. At Madrid, as we have seen (see La Gasca, in Vols. I. II. III.), there was once an attempt at such a garden, but it was never rendered effective. In various parts of Germany and Italy there are professorships of culture, and in most of the botanic gardens there are departments for agricultural and horticultural plants; but we do not recollect one, in which all the operations on the soil and on living plants are illustrated by practical examples.

The inventor of this description of garden, as far as we have been able to learn, was the late Professor Andrew Thouin (see Biog., Vol. I. p. 226.), perhaps the most scientific practical gardener that has ever yet appeared: for physiological and chemical knowledge, we know of none in this country, either practical men or amateurs, who can be at all compared with him. In France the only man fit to succeed him was his nephew, Oscar Leclerc; but, as the situation is considered a kind of sinecure for veteran academicians, it was given first to M. Bosc, and on his death to M. Mirbel, both men of the greatest merit, and the former a cultivator.

The uses of all the different departments of this garden were explained to us, while walking through them with M. Thouin himself, in 1815: the whole was then in excellent order. In 1819 we again had the pleasure of walking through a part of the garden with the venerable professor, then very infirm; but he pointed out to us the culture of the sweet potato, gave us some seeds of a new wood-strawberry, and some letters of introduction for Italy. In comparing the garden in 1828 with what it was at these periods, we think it has lost rather than gained: several of the examples of operations were wanting, or out of repair; a good many blanks were left in the systematic arrangement; and, what displeased us most of all, the compartment of soils and manures, in which also the labours of digging, picking, trenching, hoeing, raking, &c., were practically taught to the students, was without a single example of a heap of dung, compost, or soil. We were told that these had been removed, partly because there was not enough of money allowed to keep up the garden, and partly because, being in the neighbourhood of the menageries, these heaps of earth and dung were considered unsightly -a false taste, in our opinion. We hope they will be restored; because, if the art of culture is to be taught at all, it ought to be taught completely in all its parts. The different hothouses are in a state of neglect and decay, and the plants by no means worthy of comparison with those of the most indifferent British stove or green-house. The French gardeners, in general, have had too little experience in house culture to be able to compete with us in this department; and they have, besides, very indifferent houses, both in point of form and means of heating and ventilating. The nursery gardeners, and the growers of flowers and forced vegetables, equal if they do not excel us; because they have adopted the low Dutch pits, and houses with roofs entirely of glass. An English gardener, at first sight of the interior of the hot-houses in the Jardin des Plantes, and other similar hot-houses on the Continent, would say that the air was not kept sufficiently moist, because, if it were so, the plants would be more abundantly furnished with healthy foliage; but as all these houses have opaque roofs, and only glass in front, a little reflection will convince him, that to keep plants so circumstanced in a growing state through a long winter, would greatly disfigure them in point of shape, while, from deficiency of light, they would never form flower-buds. The Continental gardener, therefore, grows his plants in the summer season, and for the most part out of doors, in an open but sheltered situation, and only preserves them through the winter.