HAARLEM. 185 



l>e recognized ; and it seldom completely recovers for seve- 

 ral successive seasons. 



The hyacinth nursery-ground here, extends every year to 

 about 600 square roods, Dutch measure. The rood, it 

 will be remembered, is 144 square feet, and the Dutch foot 

 Jths of an inch longer than the English *. Some varieties 

 of the hyacinths are not readily propagated, and on this ac- 

 count, continue rare and high-priced. A simple expedient 

 is, in such cases, sometimes resorted to : the base of the 

 bulb is slightly cut or notched in three or four places ; this 

 hinders the plant from exhausting itself in the production 

 of a flower-stem, and at the same time induces a tendency 

 in the bulb to throw out offsets at the wounded places ; 

 which offsets soon become independent plants. 



Mr Eldcring appropriates several beds to the raising of 

 various bulbous-rooted plants from the seed. This sort of 

 cultivation requires great patience and perseverance, and 

 seems better adapted to the character of the Dutch than of 

 the British horticulturist. In general, in raising hyacinths 

 and tulips from the seed, if half a dozen of plants, worthy of 

 preservation, be procured out of each thousand seedlings, 

 after the labour and watching of several years, it is consi- 

 dered tolerably good success. 



We had some conversation with this intelligent person, re- 

 lative both to the sand-hills and the subsoil of this part of 

 Holland. He informed us, that from the range of hillocks 

 in the neighbourhood of his nurseries, much sand has, in 

 the course of the last twenty years, been carried away for 

 building, some of it to a great distance, the numerous canals 

 affording the means of conveyance at very easy rates. Be- 

 low the pure sand thus removed, a vegetable soil occurs, on 

 a level with the general surface of the country, indicating, 



* Supra, page 170. Note. 



