64 Observations vpoii the Polders of Flanders. 



grandifiorus, with two hundred flowers, has been very fine, but is now 

 almost over. 



Amongst manj' other plants which are now in bloom, the following are 

 most deserving of notice : — 



Stove Plants Neottia elata 



speciosa 



Euphorbia splendens 



Epidendruin cochleatum 

 Hardy Herbaceous Plants. .Tritoma pumila 



media 



■ nvaria 



Stenactis speciosus 

 Hardy Shrubs Arbutus hybrida 



Mespilus prsecox, or Glastonbury thorn. 



The Camelias look well, and are beginning to flower, but will not be 

 in perfection till February ; of these and of our stove epiphytes, we Lope 

 to be able to give some account at a future time. 

 Bristoi. Nursery, Dec, 1834. 



OBSERVATIONS 



UPON 



THE POLDERS OF FLANDERS. 



The following observations upon the " Polders," or meadow lands, of the 

 Netherlands, may perhaps be interesting to our agricultural as well as to 

 our statistical readers. We propose in one or two future papers^ to give 

 an account of the borabardraeut of 1832, from the consequences of which 

 many of these observations are deduced, as well as of the damage, direct 

 and indirect, which it inflicted upon the city and town lands of Antwerp. 



The greater part of Flanders, east and west, presents to the eye a vast 

 plain, rarely much above and frequently below the level of the neighbouring 

 ocean. Lands of the latter description are called Polders; they were 

 originally reclaimed from the sea, and are only preserved from submersion 

 by strong dykes, or banks of earth, and sluices. 



The Polders exhibit the chief agricultural strength of the Netherlands, 

 and constitute the larger and perhaps the more valuable moiety of the 

 country ; they include seventeen of the richest provinces, and among them 

 Brussels, Antwerp, and the Sas de Gaud, extending even to Nieuport and 

 Cambrai. Their superficial content has been calculated at 140,000 hec- 

 tares — about 350,000 acres English ; their total value at 150 millions of 

 florins ; and if, which is a fair estimate, we take, with the latest authorities 

 on the subject, a mean of twenty-five hectares, we shall have 5,600 pro- 

 prietors di.ectly concerned in their security and cultivation. 



