Among the earliest and most successful planters was Count Maurice, of
Nassau, who flourished in the seventeenth century. This prince had the
advantage of operating in the genial clime, and with the fruitful soil of
Brazil, of which in the year 1636, he was governor. He was a man of taste
and elegance, and adorned his palaces and gardens in that country with a
magnificence worthy of the satraps of the east. His residence was upon an
island formed by the confluence of two rivers, a place which before he
commenced his improvements presented no very promising subject, being a
dreary, waste, and uncultivated plain, equally worthless and unattractive.
On this spot, however, he erected a splendid palace, laid out gardens
around it of extraordinary 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_.
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