HAARLEM. 203 



fo this place), that the taste for topiary work had greatly 

 declined in Holland, and would probably soon be extinct, 

 From the same nurseries the retired merchant may at once 

 plant his grove or his avenue with forest-trees twenty 

 feet high. These tall forest-trees are transplanted, in the 

 nursery-rows, every third year, like the fruit-trees ; and 

 can thus be removed without much risk of going back. 

 Mr Kreps added, that, since the peace, he had on one oc- 

 casion sent a ship-load of such forest-trees to Russia, many 

 of them from twenty to twenty-five feet in height, and that 

 very few had missed. 



In passing a few nursery lines of occidental plane, we 

 happened to mention the decay and death of the greater 

 part of our fine British specimens of this tree in the year 

 1814 ; when our conductor, with some surprise at the coin- 

 cidence, told us, that the same inexplicable mortality had 

 occurred among those in Holland during the same season. 



From an oak-stub in the nurseries, Mr Hay gathered a 

 large specimen of Boletus igniarius, the principal fungus 

 from which amadou is manufactured. This amadou is im- 

 ported in considerable quantity from Hungary, and, under 

 the name of boomzwaam, is sold at all the hucksters-stalls of 

 Holland, being found a convenient portable tinder, highly 

 useful to people so habitually devoted to the tobacco-pipe ? 

 and who are not likely soon to abandon the clumsy tcmdel- 

 doosje, with its flint and iron, for the elegant phosphoric 

 match-bottle. 



In walking homeward, the conversation turned on the 

 value of land in Holland. We learned, that, near Haar- 

 lem, land of indifferent quality is let at 30 guilders a-year ? 

 or 50s. Sterling, for the gemet or Dutch acre, which is 

 nearly equal to 30s. the Scots acre, or 24s. the English ; 

 and that land of the best quality is let at 40 or even 50 



