32 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Pari I. 



AvenuS^ trees, chiefly elms and oaks, are trained for eight or ten years in the nursery , 

 re]Deatedly removed so as to become furnished with numerous fibrous roots, and pruned 

 so as to have clean smooth stems from ten to fifteen feet high. Avenues, being public 

 property, are under the care of proper officers. Judging from the vigorous growth 

 of the trees, and the manner in which they are pruned, these officers seem to under- 

 stand their business, and to do their duty. In Rotterdam, on the quays, are perhaps the 

 finest trees in Holland : they are narrow-leaved elms, upwards of fifty feet high, with 

 clear stems of twenty-five feet, and upwards, of a century old. At the Hague are re- 

 markably fine Hmes in the Mall, on the road to Scheveling ; and oaks, elms, and beeches, 

 round the palace called the House in the Wood, The hornbeam is a very common 

 plant for the garden-hedges. Every plant in the row or hedge is trained with an 

 upright stem, and the side shoots are shorn so closely, that we often find hedges of six 

 or eight feet high, not more than eighteen inches wide at base, contracted to six 

 inches wide at top. These hedges receive their summer shearing in July, by which time 

 scarlet runners are ready to shoot up from the garden side of their base, which in the 

 course of two months, cover the hedge with their fresh, verdure and brilliant blossoms, 

 and present a good crop in Octol)er and the beginning of November. The Dutch have 

 also very excellent field-hedges of birch and' willow, as well as of all the usual hedge- 

 plants, and the gardeners are particularly dexterous at cutting, training, and shearing them. 

 The deep moist grounds on the banks of their estuaries are particularly favorable for 

 the growth of the willow, and the hoops of two years' growth from the Dutch willow (a 

 variety of Salix alba, with a brownish bark,) are in great esteem in commerce. Their 

 coraiuon basket willows {S. viminialis) are also excellent, 



SuBSECT. 5. Dutch Gardening, as empiricalli/ practised. 



151. Happily the use of gardens is iinivej'sal in the Netherlands j and of the Dutch and 

 Flemings it may be truly said in the words of Lord Temple, " that gardening has been 

 the common favorite of public and private men ; a pleasure of the greatest, and a care of 

 the meanest, and indeed an employment and a possession, for which no man there is 

 too high nor too low." The gardens of the cottagers in these countries are undoubtedly 

 better managed and more productive than those of any other country ; no man who has 

 a cottage is without a garden attached ; often small, but rendered useful to a poor family 

 by the high degree of culture given to it. Every available particle of matter capable of act- 

 ing as manure is assiduously collected, and thrown into a neat ridge, cone, or bed, which 

 is turned over frequently ; and when sufficiently fermented and ameliorated, applied to 

 the soil. The plants in general cultivation in the cottage-gardens ai-e the cabbage tribe, 

 including Brussels sprouts, the white beet for the leaves and stalks, the parsnip, carrot, 

 yellow and white turnip, potatoe, the pea, bean, and kidney-bean ; the apple, pear, and 

 currant, and in some places, the vine trained over the cottage, are the fruits ; and double 

 stocks, rockets, wall-flowers, pinks, violets, roses, and honey-suckles, the leading flowers 

 and plants of ornament. It is almost unnecessary to add, that the gardens of the trades- 

 men, farmers, citizens, private gentlemen, and princes, rise in gradation, in extent, riches, 

 and high keeping. 



152. The 2^rincipal nurseries, Jlorists^ gardens, and marhet-gardens are in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Amsterdam, Haerlem, and Antwerp. These gardens formerly supplied 

 trained trees, vines, and all the most valuable plants to Britain, and other parts of 

 Europe ; and the florists still continue to monopolise the commerce of bulbous roots. 

 Great part of the fruit-trees sent by London and Wise from their nursery at Brompton 

 Park, in tlie beginning of the 18th century, were previously imported from Holland; 

 many of them reared in large wicker-baskets, were sent over in that state, and produced 

 fruit the first year after final planting. Justice (^Brit. Gard. Dir.) gives credit to the 

 Dutch nurserymen for accuracy and punctuality ; he mentions Voerhelms and Van 

 Zompel as tradesmen which he could recommend ; and it is remarkable, that the same 

 establishment (Voorhelm and Schneevooght) is the most eminent at this day. Garden- 

 seeds, for which Holland has long been celebrated, are chiefly grown by the market- 

 gardeners and small farmers round Haerlem. Roses are extensively grown at Noord- 

 wyck, between Leyden and Haerlem, for the apothecaries, and the dried leaves are sent 

 to Amsterdam and Constantinople. The sorts are, the Dutch 100-leaved and the com- 

 mon cabbage rose. A striking characteristic of Dutch fruit and forest tree nurseries is 

 the length of time the trees are trained in the nursery. They are so often removed there, 

 as to have a large fasciculus of fibrous roots, and the fruit-trees commonly bear for a year 

 or two before they are sold, at least for local planting. Ready-grown hedges and shrubs, 

 of various sizes and shapes, may be purchased ; and as they have been transplanted every 

 third year, like the trees, there is little risk of their not succeeding. At Brussels, pro- 

 fessor Van Mons has established a fruit-tree nursery, which he calls Pejnniere de la Fide- 

 lite, in which are grown upwards of 800 new varieties of pear, raised by himself and M. 

 Duquesne of Mons, since 1 803, besides new varieties of the other hardy ffuit-trees. 



