389 



The journey from Brussels to Tervueren is worth making, if 

 only for the sake of inspecting the splendid plantations of beech, 

 managed on scientific forestry principles, which border the track of 

 the electric tramway for a part of the way. Before leaving Brussels 

 a short detour was made to visit the charming Bois de la Cambre. 

 This park is well worth seeing for its fine trees, especially beech, 

 and for the pleasing and diversified prospects which it affords. 



The village of Tervueren is situated in a pleasant, open and 

 undulating country. It is a quaint and interesting place, and fills 

 a place in history through having been for six or seven centuries 

 a seat of the Dukes of Brabant. Remnants of the old ducal 

 chateau still exist. 



The Arboretum, which was only founded some six years ago, 

 covers about 300 acres. The picturesque and undulating site it 

 occupies is largely covered at the present time with young native 

 woodland. It is planned on purely geographical lines, a definite 

 area being devoted exclusively to the trees of one particular region. 

 The two great primary divisions of the Old and the New World 

 are divided and sub-divided into areas whose size has been deter- 

 mined by the extent and character of tree vegetation they are 

 intended to accommodate. Thus we find the trees of the Rocky 

 Mountains, those of the Mississippi basin, those of the Caucasus, 

 those of Japan, and so on, collected into separate groups. Every 

 region, in fact, on which a characteristic arboreal vegetation 

 exists, hardy enough to succeed here, has its own allotted space. 

 Most of the trees although still young, are thriving well, borne 

 are planted in groups of a single species ; sometimes two or three 

 species are planted in association. They are planted in clearings 

 of the young native woodland, which is useful now in affording 

 shelter, but which it is intended to gradually clear away as tne 

 exotic vegetation develops. 



The Arboretum was given by the King of Belgium for its pre- 

 sent purpose, to form a pleasant place of resort for the people ot 

 Brussels, and has been very skilfully planned so as to preserve 

 and develop the beauty of its landscape. The charming vallej s 

 by which the site is intersected are left open, and serve the double 

 purpose of affording pleasant and varied prospects, and giving 

 convenient routes from one part to another. Some of the approacneB 

 to the Arboretum are planted with long avenues of purple beecn 

 which, although still young, give singularly striking effects ine 

 trunks of these trees are not pruned clean, but the Bide-shoots are 

 trimmed back so as to form a kind of bushy column roun a the 

 trunk reaching from the ground to the lower branches of 1 h .tree. 

 The chief purpose of this system is to shield the young ^ trunks 

 from the effects of the Continental sunshine Also by mcreas ng 

 the leaf -surf ace of the tree, they augment its ™^^ c ^g 

 capacity. When the trees have grown su fficienty 1 to shade their 



own trunks, these side-shoots are removed. A Y^"^^ j unct 

 stocked nursery for trees makes a ^ef u ^ d ./ n f^ nde d even- 

 to the Arboretum. It should be added that it *™£ n ™£ u . 

 tually to supplement the collections of trees by shrubs and ne 

 ceous plants from the same regions. 



. A geographical arrangement of trees is a *%$»£ ™ £ 

 the botanic gardens of the Continent kven in smd 



