Notices — Holland and the Netherlands. 20 1 



Cultivation without Dung. M. Corvaill^ of Toulouse, has published n 

 pamphlet, in part a translation from the Italian, to show that this may be 

 effected by burying in the soil half grown crops. He gives an example 

 of a field in Piedmont, which was divided in two equal parts: on one of 

 these rye, sown in November, was plowed down on the 5th of May 

 following; at the same time the other half was well manured with stable 

 dung. Both were sown with maize ; and treated with the same care. At 

 harvest, the produce of the crop grown on the plowed-down rye, ex- 

 ceeded that grown on the dung in the proportion of 425 to 500. M. 

 Jourbert of Turin who made this experiment, thinks rye the best of all 

 plants for plowing in ; but it does not follow from the above experiment, 

 that burying living vegetables is to be preferred to manuring, because the 

 effects of the latter last for three or four years, while that of plowing -in 

 growing plants is seldom perceptible on a second crop. We have no 

 doubt however, that if the poorest land had such crops as were grown 

 upon it plowed down when they were half arrived at maturity, for a series 

 of years in succession, it would in the end become rich. But how many 

 years it would require to effect this is very uncertain. 



HOLLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS. 



The Society of Agriculture and Botany of Ghent, seem to be making ex- 

 traordinary exertions for the promotion of every department of culture. 

 At their annual meeting in June 1825, a report was made by the secretary, 

 of their transactions for the by-past year, from which we make the 

 following selections. M. P Verleeuwen, junr. Commercial Florist, com- 

 municated his observations on the principal Horticultural Establishments 

 in the neighbourhood of London. He notices the very small size of the 

 panes of glasses employed in hot-house and hot-bed sashes ; the general 

 disuse of tan in plant-stoves, and especially those of Messrs. Loddiges ; the 

 great care and neatness displayed in every description of plant habitation, 

 and the continual changing of the situation of pots, so as to vary the in- 

 fluence of the sun and light upon them according to circumstances. M. 

 Van Mons, of Louvain, presented a description of the Colmar Dewez pear 

 (Gard. Mag. p. 85.) raised by him from seed, and dedicated to M. Dewez, 

 perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres of 

 Brussels. An account of the manner of gathering opium on Mount Oympus 

 from personal inspection, and a collection of seeds from the Levant, were 

 presented by M. deLescluze. To this gentleman is owing the introduction 

 to the Netherlands of the Thibet goat. Gastonia palmata was presented 

 from the superb hot-houses of M. Caters-de-Wolf of Berchen, near Ant- 

 werp, (fig. 35. ) Two of these hot-houses are curvilineal, and were exe- 



35 



cuted by Messrs. Bailey, of London, and glazed with plate glass like those 

 at Ashridge Park, and are reckoned the most elegant in that part of the 

 continent. M. M. Van Cassel, Van Damme and Papelew, commercial 

 gardeners, gave an account of some beautiful Hybrid heaths, and Azaleas 

 which they had raised from seed procured by artificial fecundation. M. P. 

 Cock, a seedsman communicated remarks on several pretended new sorts 

 of culinary plants, which some of his brethren have introduced in their 

 catalogues, but which he considers as for the greater part inferior to those 

 in use. He presented a catalogue of his own seeds, in which was indicated 



P 3 



