662 Foreign Notices : — Holland and flie 'Hetheiiands. 



on the banks of the Thames. You will see in the sketch a small cottage, 

 with a white gable-end at the further extremity of the lake on the left. In 

 this abode once lived a worthy old English gentleman, John Good, Esq., 

 for many years a merchant in Copenhagen. Here he spent the evening of 

 117 



a well-employed life, in the society of an amiable and accomplished daugh- 

 ter. He laid out an excellent garden, with extensive shrubberies and 

 lawns, and he spai-ed no expense in procuring seeds and plants from his 

 native country. In the neighbourhood of the same lake there are some 

 other English and French merchants, who have what we think very fine 

 country-houses and gardens, though far inferior, I confess, to those of 

 England. A number of English and Scottish families have also settled 

 here since the peace of 1814; and, I believe, they are perfectly satisfied 

 with their situation and circumstances. I have lately seen M. Petersen, who 

 takes great pains to procure you every information he can. He informs me 

 that he has lately procured, for your EncyclopcEdia of Gardening, a history 

 of gardening in Sweden ; which, from the quarter whence he obtained it, 

 will, I know, be most valuable. I hope you have received it. [We have ; 

 and it shall appear, when translated, in an early Number.] — J. Rotboll. 

 Copenhagen, Aug., 1831. 



The Flora Ddnlca was begun in 1756, by Oeder, who produced ten fasci- 

 culi, and died. Miiller, between 1771 and 1783, produced five fasciculi. 

 From 1783 to 1 804,' Martin Wahl added six fasciculi to the preceding fif- 

 teen. From that time, the work has been in the hands of Professor' Horne- 

 mann, who has published twelve parts, each containing 180 plates, and 

 describing in all 900 species. " When the work may be completed it is 

 impossible to say. The flora of Denmark comprises about 3000 species 

 (1600 cotyledonous and 3200 acotyledonous) ; of which, though the v/ork 

 has been seventy-four years in progress, and, for the greater part of the time, 

 indefatigably edited, only 2200 are yet published : so that little more than 

 two fifths of the labour has yet been performed." (^Breiuster^s Journal, 

 July, 1830, p. 205.) 



HOLLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS. 



Barking the Stems of Fruit Trees and Vines. — My gardener here, who is 

 reputed one of the best fruit-gardeners of the district, and has been more 

 than once strongly pressed to go to the neighbourhood of Paris, has, what 

 he declares to be a never-failing method of greatly improving the quality 

 and size of the fruit on apple and pear trees and vines. At the winter 

 pruning which is here given in February, he cuts off with his common 

 hooked pruning-knife all the outer bark down to the liber of every tree 

 above eight or ten years old ; not so deejily, however, with the young as 

 with the old trees. 1 am assured by some of my neighbours that this man's 

 practice has never failed of being successful ; and another Englishman who 



