extent and magnificence; salubrity, seclusion, horticultural ornament were all studiously and tastefully combined in the arrangement of the buildings; the choicest fruits of a tropical climate, the orange, the citron, the ananas, with many others unknown to us, solicited at once the sight, the smell, and the taste; artificial fountains of water preserved the coolness of the air, and maintained the verdure of the earth; thirteen bastions and turrets flanked and defended the gardens; and seven hundred trees of various sizes, of which some rose to thirty, some to forty, and some to fifty feet high to the lowermost branches, were removed to the spot, and arranged by the designer’s skill in such a manner as to produce the most striking and splendid effect.  Some of these trees were of seventy and others of eighty years growth.  Being skilfully taken up they were placed carefully in carriages, conveyed over a space of from three to four miles in extent, transported on rafts across both the rivers, and on being replanted in the island, so favourable were both soil and vegetation in that genial climate, that they immediately struck root, and even bore fruit during the first year after their removal.

Louis XIV. who, by the good efforts of the learned Jesuits, had been taught that the practice of transplanting was well known to the Greeks and Romans, resolved to rival, and if possible, to eclipse whatever had been achieved in this art by these distinguished nations.  Accordingly, among the stupendous changes made on the face of nature at Versailles and other royal residences, immense trees were taken up by the roots, erected on carriages, and removed at the royal will and pleasure.  Almost the whole Bois de Boulogne was in this way said to be transported from Versailles to its present site, a distance of about two leagues and a half.  To order the march of an army was the effort of common men, and every day commanders; to order the removal of a forest seemed to suit the magnificent conception of a prince, who, in all his enterprises, affected to act upon a scale immeasurably greater than that of his contemporaries.  In the Bois de Boulogne, in spite of military devastation, the curious eye may still distinguish, in the rectilinear disposition of the trees, the traces of this extraordinary achievement.

At Potsdam, Frederick II., and at Warsaw, the last king of Poland transferred some thousands of large trees, in order to embellish the royal gardens at those places; and at Lazenki, in the suburbs of Warsaw, the far famed and unfortunate Stanislaus laid out the palace and grounds in a style of luxuriance and magnificence which has, perhaps, never been surpassed since the days of the Roman emperors.  To add to the charm of this favourite spot, he removed some thousands of trees and bushes with which the gardens and the park were adorned; both were frequently thrown open to the public, and on these occasions, entertainments of unexampled splendour and gaiety were given to the court and to the principal inhabitants of the capital, which are still recollected with feelings of delight.—­Stuart’s Planter’s Guide.—­Westminster Review.