HAARLEM. 181 



riety of the common apple (as we presume), which retains 

 its leaves and fruit till midwinter, or longer, if it be pro- 

 tected from frost. It here receives the name of Pyrus sem- 

 pervirens, or Bastard Rennet ; and we learned that pots 

 containing the tree, clothed with its leaves and fruit, have, 

 at great dinners, been placed on the table in the months of 

 January and February. Dwarfish fruit-trees, of different 

 kinds, are much in repute in Holland ; and we may men- 

 tion, that a physician and zealous amateur-horticulturist at 

 Ems, in Hesse-Darmstadt, has published a work entitled Obst- 

 Orangerie, in which he extols them, and has thus spread a 

 taste for them in that part of Germany. He is himself, 

 we are told, very successful in this sort of culture, having 

 trees of the most diminutive size bearing plentifully ; the 

 more tender kinds in flower-pots and tubs, so as to be pro- 

 tected, when necessary, by being placed in the greenhouse 

 or orangery. 



Elder ings Bulb-Nursery. 



In the afternoon, we took a walk, in the opposite direc- 

 tion from Haarlem, towards the sand-hills near the sea, in 

 quest of the nurseries of Mr Gerret Eldering, to whom we 

 had a letter of introduction from one of his Edinburgh cor- 

 respondents. On the road-side, Field Southernwood (Ar- 

 temisia campestris), which is a rare plant in England, and 

 does not at all occur in Scotland, appeared as a common 

 weed. After passing a pleasant hamlet, sheltered by these 

 sand-hills, we came to an extensive bleachfield ; and this 

 proved to be Mr Eldering's, for he unites the professions 

 of bulb-cultivator and bleacher. The bleachfield is in the 

 lowest part of the ground. In our own country we should 

 have expected the ditches, in such a situation, to have been 

 dirty and slimy ; here, however, they were free from im- 



