L’apport du cadastre à la recherche sur les jardins historiques : l’exemple du département du Maine-et-Loire

The listing of parks and gardens of the Maine-et-Loire departement based upon the sole first cadastral survey and the 1/250 000e IGN map reveals about a thousand places in a rural environment divided into three groups of landscaping: irregularly shaped geometrical compositions, regularly shaped compositions and « natural » compositions. The examination of these documents delivers more information about the income of the property than about the parks and gardens themselves. Illustrations given by the detailed survey are more about the château structure than the garden which allows a typochronological study of the landscaped compositions eventhough the income survey of the area does not always specify the garden pattern.