THE 



GARDENERS MAGAZINE, 



JUNE, 1835. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Observations on the Gardening of Belgium^ tvith mcidental 

 Remarks on its Rural and Domestic Economy; extracted Jrom 

 Notes made during a Six Years' Residence in the Country. By 

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



(^Continued from p. 225.} 



Amateur Gardeners. — Among the many amateurs with whom 

 Ghent abounds, M. Mechelynk must certainly be reckoned the 

 first, particularly with regard to stove plants ; which he certainly 

 cultivates as well as I have ever seen them in any gentleman's or 

 gardener's collection in England. His hot-house, like all the 

 others in Belgium, is heavy, and has large panes of glass; but 

 his tan bed, which is edged all round with a broad kerb of 

 granite, is the very pattern of neatness ; and the whole culture of 

 his hot-house plants does his gardener much credit. The plants 

 themselves are accounted a first-rate collection ; and they cer- 

 tainly form one of which any nobleman in England might be 

 proud. M. Mechelynk's green-house plants are very fine ; but 

 neither the houses nor the plants themselves are in such fine 

 order as those already mentioned : it is very evident, indeed, that 

 the gardener does not pay the green-house plants the same atten- 

 tion as he does the stove plants ; or, perhaps, it would require 

 an extra-gardener, and more suitable green-houses, to keep them 

 in an equal state of perfection. 



M. Verplancke has, perhaps, the finest green-houses in Ghent, 

 they being built of iron, and very neatly kept; but his collection 

 of plants is very inferior to the house in which it is placed. 



M. Huyttens-Kerremans has a neat little green-house, too high 

 for the plants he cultivates ; but which, nevertheless, does great 

 credit to his groom, who amuses himself, in his leisure hours, in 

 the culture of plants: and, if many other men-servants had the 



Vol. XL — No. 63. x 



