Horticultural Tour in the Netherlands. 293 



In the afternoon we visited the garden of the Comtesse 

 de Carnen, at Nalde. No place could be more at variance 

 with the taste of an English gardener ; the orange trees and 

 green-house plants were placed in straight single lines in a 

 square, enclosed with tall thin edges, each plant fastened by 

 the stem to a small painted rail, and all trained with naked 

 stems as standards. The effect was curious, and it did really 

 seem quite ridiculous to see the poor myrtles, laurustinuses, 

 bays, pomegranates, oleanders, arbutuses, and aucubas, with 

 numerous oranges, looking more like mops than plants, with 

 some of the stems of the myrtles not larger than a reed, and 

 from 4 ft. to 6* ft. high ; the heads of all being cut as round as 

 a ball. The gardener appeared to think them the summit of 

 perfection, and his eyes glistened at the praises which I gave 

 him for the ingenuity and perseverance he had displayed ; but 

 when I explained to him, that with us they would all have 

 been left in a state of nature, which we thought most orna- 

 mental, he shook his head most significantly, and seemed to 

 pity us for having no taste. Common thyme is used here 

 extensively as an edging for the borders, and the gardener 

 said that it was the only aromatic herb known, or in use, in 

 this part of Flanders. French cookery being general here, I 

 was surprised at the dearth of what we call potherbs ; but 

 salad seems to be the staple article of vegetable food, for 

 both rich and poor eat it most abundantly with every meal they 

 take. The orange trees were for sale, and the gardener gave 

 me the prices of some; for plants about S ft. he asked 15$. 

 each, and standards about 5 ft. were 20s. each. The heads 

 of these trees, however, had been so carefully formed into the 

 ball-like shape, that, in England, they would have been ridi- 

 culous. A very high value was set on the large trees. The 

 taste for orange trees is much more general in Flanders than 

 in England. They Were all in the finest health, but were 

 grown in a compost that would puzzle an English cultivator, 

 viz. black, moist, soft, peaty soil, mixed with cow dung and 

 sheep dung in equal quantities. 



A taste for rare and good plants is here generally diffused, 

 and, I believe, it extends all over Flanders, as they have their 

 societies and " expositions " at Bruges, Louvain, Courtrai, 

 Brussels, Ghent, and every town of any importance in the 

 country. The number of exhibitors here (Bruges), the last 

 " exposition d'et6 " [summer show], which took place in 

 June, was upwards of 100, and at Ghent it Was nearly 300; 

 almost all exhibited some good or rare plants. These facts more 

 than any thing will show the diffusion of a refined taste for 



