THE

GARDENER'S MAGAZINE,

JULY, 1826.

PART I.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ART. I. Sketches of the Botanical, Horticultural, and Agricultural Circumstances of Spain. By DON MARIANO LA GASCA, Professor of Botany in the University of Madrid.

SPAIN enjoys a prodigious diversity of climates, which

enables her to propagate, at small expense, the greater part of the most precious vegetable productions found in every quarter of the globe. This is clearly manifested by the numerous plants from hot countries which thrive in her gardens, and which were introduced by private individuals, from laudable curiosity, or enlightened patriotism. Those which are the production of northern regions are also found growing spontaneously both on the summits of her high mountains and on their sloping sides.

These fine dispositions of nature would, doubtless, have been turned to their advantage by the inhabitants, had not a depraved legislation been purposely throwing, for the space of more than three hundred years, insurmountable obstacles in the way of their efforts. A great many enlightened and patriotic Spaniards have repeatedly, though fruitlessly, endeavoured to overcome them, receiving as a reward for their benevolent zeal, sad and bitter disappointments, persecutions, dungeons, the galleys, expatriation, and even death. Such has been the result of their toils, and such will it ever be, in countries where, as in my unfortunate native land, there is no liberty to permit the diffusion of useful knowledge through the medium of the press, where only

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those objects are encouraged which are not only useless but hurtful to the national welfare, where no guarantee is to be had for the security of individuals and their property, — and where they cannot call the soil their own, or cultivate it according to their pleasure or free will.

The reader will deduce ovident proofs of these truths from the perusal of the following pages.

BOTANIC GARDENS.

THE only botanical gardens existing at the present period in Spain are, that of Madrid, which is denominated the Royal Botanical Garden; those belonging to the four schools of Pharmacy established at Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, and Santiago; that of the College of Surgery at Cadiz; that of the university of Valencia; and that belonging to the Board of Commerce of Barcelona, devoted principally to agronomical botany. In 1818 the government gave orders for six more gardens, also for the study of agronomical botany, to be established at Burgos, Seville, Toledo, Valencia, Badajoz, and Leon; but though professors were nominated to them all, it was only in Seville, Toledo, and Valencia that schools had actually been opened, even in 1820. The botanical garden of Carthagena, being within reach of cannon-shot from that city, was destroyed in 1808, and has never been restored. The horrors of war also put an end to that which had existed at. Zaragoza ever since 1796, and which was under the immediate protection of the enlightened society called "The Friends of the Country," who formerly contributed so effectually to diffuse throughout the nation the most useful knowledge by means of their writings, and by the establishment of the academy of Belles Lettres, and schools of public economy, mathematics, chemistry, botany, and agriculture,— by the erection of a cabinet of natural history, by the annual distribution of prizes,-by their labours to perfect the methodso. teaching the first rudiments of learning; and, lastly, by the establishment of the Monte Pio* for husbandmen. In the year 1822, the same patriotic body solicited assistance from the government to re-establish their ancient garden, proposing to make new improvements in it; but I am ignorant whether they obtained it. The botanical garden belonging to the School of Physicians of Seville, founded by Philip V. at the suggestion of his first physician, the celebrated Don José

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Establishments where they lend money on cattle and implements. exacting but a very trifling interest.

Cervi, has also ceased to exist: the same fate has attended the botanico-agronomical garden of Valladolid, which owed its foundation, in 1803, chiefly to the illustrious bishop Don Juan Antonio Hernandez de Larrea, a model of learning and patriotism, and which was supported by the members of the Economical Society of the same city till the invasion of Napoleon.

The botanical garden of Madrid, founded in 1755, and placed in the royal country seat, called El Soto de Migas Calientes, on the left banks of the river Manzanares, and at about a mile and a half from the city, was transferred in 1788 to the place where it now stands within the walls of Madrid. It is bounded on the west by the magnificent promenade of the Prado, from which it is separated only by an elegant iron railing; on the south by that of Atocha, on the east by the garden of the Buen Retiro, and on the north by that of the monks of St. Gerome, and by the sumptuous building of the Museum of Natural History, erected by the wise and munificent Charles III., and which is now the Museum of Pictures; but another very handsome building is to be erected for natural history in the Prado, so that in this respect it will hereafter be one of the most splendid museums in Europe. (Link's Travels in Portugal, and through France and Spain, p. 103.) Its figure is an irregular polygon; it has two principal gates, of an excellent style of architecture, as entrances for the public, and four other gates for the private service of the garden. Its extent is twenty-eight fanegadas * (about forty-two acres), and is divided into two unequal parts. The largest of these has about eighteen fanegadas; it is divided from east to west into two equal parts by a magnificent walk of about sixty feet broad, beginning at the principal gate of the Prado, and terminating at a handsome portico that leads to the lecturing hall; and from north to south into three plots, two of which, the smallest, are appropriated to the use of the practical school of botany, and to contain such plants and perennials as have not been examined. Each of these plots is subdivided into four equal quarters, and these into as many other divisions, except the two upper ones, which have only three in the centre of each there is a small fountain, whose waters are brought through subterraneous pipes from the two principal reservoirs intended for irrigation, which have their origin in a source near the Plaza de Toros, at

* A fanega is a measure containing about a hundred weight; and a fanegada, the extent of arable land which takes a fanega of seed, about 14 acre.

about a mile from the garden, and from two draw-wells situated at its western extremity. Each division is subdivided by walks a foot and a half broad into two hundred and eighty beds, two feet square, and half a foot deep, in each of which only one species of plant is cultivated. These divisions are enclosed by fences formed of common rose-trees (rosa gallica, Lin.); and between these and the beds there is a broad walk, with a border about three feet wide, in which different ornamental plants, most of them liliaceous, are symmetrically arranged at equal distances, in masses. There is externally, between the said fences of rose-trees and the walks of the garden, a border or platband about four feet broad, bounded on the outside by an edge of myrtle or box, about ten inches high, where large umbrageous trees, generally exotics, are planted, about eighteen feet distant from each other, the shade of which preserves in summer the plants of the school from the excessive heat of the sun, and without which they would inevitably perish. The spaces left between tree and tree are occupied by shrubs or dwarf-trees, which may be pruned; as the yew-tree, Viburnum tinus, Prunus laurocerasus, Rosmarinus officinalis, Ruscus aculeatus, &c.; or by those naturally of a fine shape, as the Robinia hispida and umbraculifera, Medicago arborea, Cytisus austriacus and laburnum, Spartium junceum, &c.; and by various herbaceous plants of ornament, such as iris, wall-flowers, columbines, different kinds of candy-tuft or rock-cress, dahlias, pæonies, common day-lily, and yellow day-lily, ranunculus, anemones, upright larkspurs, a great many varieties of common gillyflowers, speedwells, primroses, sun-flowers, star-worts, wild marygolds, and various others. The trunks of some robust trees are clothed with creeping shrubs, as ivy, virgin's bower, virginian silk-tree, trumpet-flower, Coccoloba sagittifolia, which flowers and fruits there in the open air; two kinds of sarsaparilla, Menispermum canadense, and some others. The divisions of the two plots appropriated to perennial and biennial plants of the practical school are divided into twelve parts, each containing twenty-four beds, disposed as we have already mentioned, and may hold about eight thousand species, a number which will not easily be collected there, considering the climate of Madrid, which is excessively cold in winter, and very hot in summer. It was projected that each bed should have an iron ticket, with the number of the bed, and the systematic name of the plant it contained, in Spanish; but this plan could not be carried into execution, owing principally to the want of funds. Consequently we were obliged to confine our tickets