August 23, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



353 



To the true lover of nature (he beautifulsimplicity of natural 

 growths appeals with a suggestiveness of reminiscence that is 

 often wanting in the costher occupant of the greenhouse or 

 fiower-garden. It is the difference between a curio and a 

 houseiiold relic, one rare and lovely and precious, but the 

 other endeared by tenderest memories. To the child the de- 

 light of hunting for the chary wild flower far exceeds any riot 

 in the well-kept garden, while the boy's nutting expeditions are 

 much more to his mind than the plucking of fruit in the rich- 

 est orchard. In after life all that recalls these lost delights is 

 dear to the man's heart, and has its own intimate and sugges- 

 tive charm. A lesson in economy comes scarcely amiss in 

 these troubled days, and since it is luxuries that must go first 

 when it is a question of giving up something, it is well to know 

 that the living-rooms need not suffer so long as there are 

 woods and fields to draw upon for their floral decoration, while 

 the exchange for tasteful simplicity is really a distinct gain, 

 contrasted with the wasteful and inordinate use of flowers 

 with too lavish and expensive profusion. 



Horticulture in Belgium. 



WITH the permission of the FirstCommissioner of Her 

 Majesty's Works and Public Buildings, the Curator 

 of the Royal Gardens, Mr. George Nicholson, A. L. S., w^as 

 sent to Belgium for the purpose of attending the Thirteenth 

 International Quinquennial Horticultural Exhibition at 

 Ghent (April 16-23), and of visiting the more important 

 horticultural establishments. The following notes from the 

 Kew Bullelin give his impressions of the present position of 

 gardening enterprise in Belgium : 



Belgium is a great horticultural country, and Ghent itself 

 one of the busiest and most important centres of gardening on 

 the continent. Nurseries, many of them of very considerable 

 extent, exist by the hundred in its immediate neighborhood. 

 Owing to various causes, cheap glass, cheap labor, etc., many 

 plants are grown for trade purposes on an enormous scale and 

 exported to other European countries at a less price than they 

 could be grown by the persons who import them. Azaleas are 

 a case in point. That splendid specimen of Azaleas can be 

 grown in this country is evident enough to any one familiar 

 with our great flower-shows, but that beautiful bushy market 

 plants can be produced in the same time and at the same cost 

 as those exported from Belgium is, I believe, impossible. The 

 continental summer allows these to be planted out in beds in 

 the open air, and causes the wood to be thoroughly ripened 

 and the buds to set in a way which cannot obtain with us, ex- 

 cept in exceptionally favorable seasons. On the other hand, 

 our moister, cooler summers enable English gardeners to sur- 

 pass their continental colleagues with such plants as Nepenthes, 

 Ferns, Heaths and many hard-wooded plants. 



Fashion in horticulture changes in a somewhat arbitrary 

 way, and no one can escape this conclusion by even reading 

 the reports of the exhibitions of less than twenty years ago 

 and those of to-day. Then new plants and collections were 

 much valued, and nurserymen kept for sale large collections 

 of stove and greenhouse plants which now are hardly to be 

 found outside a botanic garden. Even Camellias, which less 

 than a generation ago were very extensively grown about 

 Ghent, arc now not to be seen in some establishments where 

 once they were the principal stock in trade ; apparently the 

 difficulty in arranging the cut flowers and the impracticability 

 of cutting largely from the plants is the cause of the disfavor 

 into which they have fallen. New plants, too, in the sense of 

 collections of species, are almost ignored in many places, and, 

 instead, enormous numbers of ornamental foliage and flower- 

 ing plants, belonging sometimes to not more than a score of 

 species, and often fewer still, are now to be seen. 



The International Quinquennial Exhibition is the thirteenth 

 of the series and the iSgth flower-show — organized by La 

 Soci^te Royale d'Agriculture et de Botanique of Ghent. The 

 society was first formed in 1808, and its first exhibition was 

 held in a room of a small inn in 1809, about one hundred yards 

 from the site of its present quarters ; a reproduction of this 

 first exhibition as regards the room, etc., and as far as possible 

 the species and varieties of plants, was one of the most inter- 

 esting features of the quinquennial of 1888. 



From 1837, exhibitions were held in a large permanent 

 building, but in 1878 temporary structures more vast each suc- 

 ceeding 'quinquennial' were built in the grounds. This year 

 one structure, admirably built, designed by Monsieur Ed. Py- 

 naert, covered a space of more than 2,500 square metres ; and 

 arrangements for heating were made so that, had the weather 



proved cold, the plants contained in it would have, been per- 

 fectly safe. 



Subsidies from the Belgian Government, the Province, the 

 town of Ghent and the subscriptions of the members of the 

 society furnish the large sum of money necessary to carry out 

 an exhibition on so vast a scale. No entry fees are paid by 

 exhibitors, and the society makes arrangements with the rail- 

 way and steamship companies for low freight charges. This 

 year the entries were more numerous than ever ; some even 

 were refused for want of space, and some groups of plants, 

 which otherwise would have been under cover, were placed 

 for effective masses in the open garden. The jury, consisting 

 of 184 members, belonging to fifteen nationalties, including 

 Russia, Brazil and Japan, divided into sections, had to judge 

 about 660 classes. 



The great hall, a glass-roofed structure, with an area of 

 2,200 square metres, was so arranged as to produce a wonder- 

 fully fine effect. Large Palms, Tree Ferns, etc., were massed 

 irregularly round outer walls and at the foot of the double 

 staircase leading to the upper rooms of the Casino. A main 

 curving walk went round the building in front of these tall 

 banks of foliage. Eight masses of dwarfer-growing plants 

 were arranged in the centre of the hall, with a broad central 

 walk and shorter ones leading into the main arteries. 



The Palms were especially well grown, large specimens in 

 splendid health, in small tubs and pots. Careful attention to 

 watering, and especially in the application of liquid manure, 

 enables the growers to produce beautiful specimens of great 

 size, which can be moved about with comparative ease. Some 

 years ago collections of Palms were grown for sale by some of 

 the principal Belgian nurserymen ; now house after house ot 

 a single species, or of a very few of those best adapted for 

 decorative work, are to be met with, and the rarer kinds of less 

 value from a 'furnishing' point of view have almost entirely 

 disappeared. Kentia, Phoenix, Cocos and Livistonia are the 

 genera now most frequently represented in nurseries, but in 

 the exhibition a number of fine specimens of Washingtonia 

 and Erythea (imported from the Riviera), Thrinax, Sabal, 

 Rhapis, Pritchardia, Seaforthia, etc., were to be seen. 



In the centre of the great hall, huge specimen Azaleas were 

 so thickly covered with flowers as to hide the leaves. Although 

 in shape the plants were extremely formal, they showed ex- 

 ceptional skill in cultivation. There must have been consid- 

 erable trouble taken in 'keeping back' plants which, under 

 any ordinary conditions in such a season as the present, would 

 have been quite out of flower before the exhibition opened. 

 We heard of one exhibitor placing blocks of ice in his Azalea 

 house in order to keep down the temperature. Careful shad- 

 ing — in some cases moving plants into dark sheds, etc. — was 

 also resorted to. Some of the Aroids exhibited were excep- 

 tionally fine ; a grander lot of Anthurium Scherzerianum than 

 that exhibited by Monsieur G. Warocque was probably never 

 before seen ; the specimens were very large, healthy and with 

 extraordinary large inflorescences. The ornamental-foliage 

 Aroids were also well represented; these plants are more 

 widely grown as stove decorafive plants in Belgium and other 

 continental countries than in Britain. Ferns, with the excep- 

 tion of Tree Ferns, which were well shown, were not remark- 

 able ; much better groups, as regards cultivation and variety, 

 are to be seen at any of the large London shows. 



Cycads were good and attracted much attention, but they 

 were decidedly inferior, for instance, to those in cultivation in 

 the Palm-house at Kew. Fine plants of Caladiums were ex- 

 hibited in great variety by Monsieur Louis Van Houtte. 



The Norfolk Island Pine, Araucaria excelsa, and a number 

 of garden varieties of it were exhibited in (he most perfect 

 condition ; in and around Ghent whole series of houses in 

 many establishments are devoted to the cultivation of this 

 conifer. It is one of the most popular plants for table and 

 conservatory decoration. 



In the central hall of the rotunda were exhibited two very 

 wonderful groups of Orchids containing many rare, choice and 

 valuable varieties of well-known species, and not a few well- 

 grown plants of rare species, beautifully flowered. The two 

 exhibitors were Messieurs J. Hye and G. Warocqu^, both Bel- 

 gian amateurs. 



A collection said to contain 228 distinct species, many of 

 them uncommon, was exhibited by Monsieur Alfred van 

 Imschoot ; among them was a Vanilla in fruit. 



Both at the exhibition and in many of the nurseries visited 

 the English visitor could not help being struck by the health 

 and vigor of Cattleyas, Odontoglossums, Miltonias and other 

 Orchids. Whether the extreme vigor of the plants conduces 

 to longevity (many Orchids are short-lived under cultivation) 

 is a question which many would like to see definitely settled. 



