122 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



crowded Dutch town. The number of different herbaceous 

 plants is very considerable ; and it can only have been by 

 great and long continued assiduity, that such an assemblage 

 has been brought together. There is a small greenhouse for 

 the more tender plants, which are kept in pots, but the me- 

 rit of the garden rests on those which are hardy. The soil 

 is rich, and at the same time very friable, being a mixture of 

 vegetable mould with fine sand. In some places, the clean- 

 ings of the ditches had been used in forming the borders. 

 Small as the garden is, room is found both for a piece of 

 rock-work and an aquarium, and these are furnished with 

 suitable plants. The shrubs and trees are necessarily very li- 

 mited in point of number ; but still there is a select variety 

 of these. Even fruit-trees are not wanting. The fig-tree 

 is here treated as a standard, and we were told that it ge- 

 nerally ripens its fruit. 



The only other garden, perhaps, deserving particular no- 

 tice, is that of Dr Daalen. We had not the good fortune 

 to see the Doctor, who, we understand, is very attentive to 

 strangers who wish to see his botanical collection. We may 

 mention, that to a friend of ours, Dr Daalen stated, that he 

 had found the application of ashes to the roots of tlie Hy- 

 drangea hortensis, effectual in causing the production of the 

 fine blue colour sometimes observed on the flowers of that 

 plant. Dutch ashes, it will be remembered, are chiefly 

 from turf. The Doctor added, that he regarded the ash of 

 the Norway spruce, billets of which are often used for fuel, 

 as more effectual in producing the blue colour of the petals 

 than the common turf ash. 



The Cingle. 



We walked along a part of the Cingle, which is a broad 

 rural road surrounding the city, somewhat in the manner 

 of the Boulevarts of Paris. We entered the Doelen, a 



