THE 



GARDENERS MAGAZINE 



MAY, 1835. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Observations on the Gardening of Belgium^ 'with incidental 

 Remarks on its Rural and Domestic Economy; extracted Jrom 

 Notes made during a Six Years' Residence in the Countri/. l^j 

 John Maddison, Esq., of Wondelghem, near Ghent. 



Perhaps there are no people except the English that have a 

 greater taste for horticulture than the Belgians : but, then, it is 

 practised on quite different principles in the two countries ; for 

 where, in England, a new plant would be worth five guineas, 

 in Belgium the gardener would have difficulty in regaining the 

 money he had spent in raising it, unless he were enabled to mul- 

 tiply it exceedingly : and, even then, he would find so many 

 competitors, that he would be obliged to take out the greater 

 part of his gains in other plants which would be given- to him 

 in exchange. Almost every one here has something to do with 

 plants ; and every one, therefore, is unwilling to pay money for 

 new plants, knowing that in his own collection he has also plants 

 which others desire, and that thus he can always exchange. In 

 the town of Ghent itself there are 203 plant-houses, and in its 

 immediate environs 67. 



Soil. — I know of no place where the propagation of plants is 

 more successful than in this country : the Ghent gardeners cer- 

 tainly excel in this species of culture. The ground in which 

 they strike their cuttings and make their layers is, without 

 exception, the finest I ever saw ; but this ground, which is so 

 good for the growth of plants, is, comparatively speaking, worth 

 but little for throwing a plant into flower, or for the production 

 of good fruit. American plants, and many with wiry roots, it 

 suits well enough ; though, with the exception of the American 

 border plants (peat-earth plants), I am inclined to think even the 

 others would succeed better, as they increase in age, in a soil 

 with a mixture of loam, an earth hardly to be met with in the 

 environs of Ghent : and this circumstance, together with the 

 Vol. XL — No. 62. r 



