ANTWERP. 10!) 



Among the herbaceous plants of Mr Smetz's garden, 

 the collection of Dahlias is highly deserving of notice. It 

 is indeed by much the best we have hitherto seen. The 

 double-flowered varieties are planted in clumps in the 

 borders, and produce a very rich effect at this season. No 

 fewer than twenty different sorts, with double flowers, and 

 varying in colour, have, within a few years, been gained 

 from the seed by Mr Donkelaar, who makes annual sow- 

 ings. Besides these, he has ten varieties witli semi-double 

 flowers. Such as come single, are commonly rejected, un- 

 less the colours prove fine or uncommon, such as orange, 

 bright yellow, pure white, or very dark purple. The 

 seedling plants of this year were growing in long rows in 

 the kitchen-garden quarter, not unlike rows of beans, or 

 some culinary crop. They were already very generally in 

 flower, and presented considerable variety. All the flowers 

 that we observed, however, were single : but those that 

 come multiplicate, and are most likely to prove full, are 

 often shy in displaying their blossoms ; sometimes, for the 

 first year or two, they only shew the flower-buds, without 

 expanding them ; if these be large or bulging, the plant 

 should be kept and fostered in a sheltered border till its 

 character be ascertained. It is only about eight years 

 since Mr Smetz procured a few dahlia tubers from Paris, 

 the first that came to Antwerp ; and such has already been 

 the success that has crowned the labours of his diligent 

 gardener, and so favourable to this plant do the soil and 

 climate of this district appear to be, that the dahlias of Ant- 

 werp are now in request at the French capital*. — The 



* According to a practice not uncommon, we believe, on the Continent, 

 Mr Donkelaar has it in his power to dispose of supernumerary plants of 

 different kinds. The twenty sorts of double dahlias, we found, were thus 



