324 foreign Notices : — Belgium. 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 



BELGIUM. 



Names of some of the principal Gardens and Gardeners in Belgium. — Nur- 

 serymen: M. Verleeuween has a fine collection of stove, green-house, and 

 hardy plants, including a collection of Orchidaceae, and a superior collection 

 of the Belgian kinds of azalea, &c. Messrs. Van Geert have a fine collection 

 of stove plants, including Orchidaceae, and the rarer species of Cactaceae. 

 There is also a fine collection of choice camellias ; and the garden is rich in mag- 

 nolias, azaleas, &c., and Australian and other choice green-house plants. M. 

 Varschaffelt's very superior nursery contains many rare and handsome species of 

 stove, green-house, and hardy plants. He has a fine collection of magnolias, 

 azaleas, &c. ; and has a house exclusively devoted to his collection of Orchi- 

 daceae. These and several other nurserymen are very spirited, and cultivate 

 with success large collections of choice plants : they are, in regard to extent 

 and variety of rare and valuable species, superior to most of the London nur- 

 series; of course excepting Messrs. Loddiges, and two or three other col- 

 lections, which it would be erroneous to compare with them. Their nurseries 

 have no pretensions to elegance or novelty in their arrangement ; utility being 

 the first object. In their hot-houses, green-houses, &c., they have their stages 

 constructed so as to hold an immense number of small plants in 48-sized and 

 32-sized pots ; and, except in very choice species, they do not allow space to 

 large plants, the severity of the winters obliging them to shelter many ever- 

 green shrubs which live and flourish in our gardens and shrubberies. In their 

 love for and knowledge of plants they are happily very different from many 

 who, in England, assume the name of nurserymen, grossly ignorant of the his- 

 tory and wonders of the vegetable kingdom, loving their plants as the coal- 

 merchant loves his coals, merely as a source for procuring wealth. 



M. Mechelyneck (a private gentleman) has a first-rate collection of plants, 

 particularly of stove plants. His Orchidaceae, and other expensive plants, must 

 not be compared to the groups of hybrid Cactaceae, Pelargonium, &c., which 

 seem to be the only objects some collections can boast of. You may travel 

 several English counties through, without meeting with as many really interest- 

 ing species. 



Mr. , near Mr. Maddison's, has a good garden, several houses for 



plants, and a handsome grafted specimen of Rhododendron arboreum (true), 

 which has produced numerous flowers during the last six or seven years, and 

 will be very fine this spring. In the shrubbery near the dwelling-house are 

 fine specimens of magnolias. Magn6b« macrophylla is equal to, if not larger 

 than, the plant at Chiswick (Duke of Devonshire's) ; and there are several 

 very large specimens of azaleas, rhododendrons, and other choice shrubs, in the 

 shrubbery. 



M. Buyck Vandermaersh (an amateur) has a fine collection of green-house 

 plants, camellias, rhododendrons, paeonias, &c., in a very small garden ; a real 

 multum in parvo. Besides these, there is a great number of mai'ket-gardeners 

 and nurserymen, chiefly growers of camellias. 



Here they have a public sale, or auction, of plants almost every da}', at cer- 

 tain times of the year ; several good plants are offered, and, in general, sold, 

 for more than they would bring in Covent Garden Market. There is in pro- 

 gress, and will soon be finished, an elegant and extensive building for the use 

 of the Agricultural Society, its library, museum, &c,, in outline not unlike the 

 new National Gallery now erecting in Trafalgar Square. 



In Ghent, the nurserymen, gardeners, amateurs, and all lovers of plants and 

 gardening, frequent an inn in a fashionable part of the town, where they have 

 a large room for themselves, and where, in good social company, they discuss 

 matters connected with their profession, or pass an hour at card-playing or 

 the like. With few exceptions, they all attend ; and on Sunday nights as well 

 as others. 



