1 Jj8 horticultural tour. 



restoration of the Orange Family. Unluckily it is very 

 sickly, and it will probably soon die. Indeed, if tbere be 

 no particular reason for preferring the spruce-fir, the inha- 

 bitants could not have selected a tree less likely to flourish 

 in their towns, or worse adapted to the soil of Holland. 

 An oak would have grown much better. But we after- 

 wards passed through two other villages, Leckmont and 

 Meerkis, in each of which a spruce-fir was, in like manner, 

 planted at the market-place, and railed in. This kind of 

 tree, therefore, seems to be here appropriated to the pur- 

 pose. Inscriptions, in the Dutch language, were painted 

 on boards beside the trees. We had not time to try our 

 skill in decyphering these ; but we recollect to have noti- 

 ced Oranje boven figuring in conspicuous characters. At 

 a bierkroegje or change-house in the last of these villages, 

 our drivers regaled themselves with some simple fare and a 

 pipe ; and the horses meanwhile got a feed of brown bread, 

 for slicing down which there was fixed, upon a bench near 

 the door, a knife moving upon a hinge. 



Having crossed the Meruwe or Zwaan ferry, a branch 

 of the Maese, — with diligence, horses, drivers, passengers 

 and all, crammed into the same bac, — we left Gorchum on 

 one side of the river and Worchum on the other, at a very 

 short distance on our right. We soon after entered on a 

 stretch of poorcountry,wheremoorand marsh prevailed much 

 more than corn-land or even pasture. Grebes and water- 

 hens* became common in the extensive swampy pools which 

 now presented themselves. We noticed many oval pieces 

 of basket-work, like large nests, suspended by sticks over 



• Wc could distinguish both the red-headed or crested grebe (Colymbus 

 cristatus), and the black. headed or cared (C. auritus) ; the common water- 

 hen (Fulica ( hloropus), and the coot (F. atra), seemed equally plentiful. 



