Book 1. 



GARDENING IN HOLLAND. 



31 



SuBSECT. 3. Dutch Gardening in respect to the Culture of Fruits and CulinarTj Vegetables. 



146. The Dutch and Flemings are eminent as fruit-gardeners, but, as Harte observes, 

 they are better operators than writers, and having at the same time a good deal of the 

 spirit of gens de ?nelier, we have almost nothing to offer in the way of historical inform- 

 ation. Those gardens, which Gesner and Stephanus inform us were so richly stocked 

 with flowers early in the sixteenth century, would, no doubt, be equally so with fruits 

 and legumes. One of the earliest books on the horticulture of the Low Countries, is 

 that of Van Osten, published about the end of the seventeenth century. They appear at 

 that time to have had all the fruits, now in common cultivation, in considerable variety, 

 excepting the pine-apple, which Miller informs us was introduced about that' time by Le 

 Cour, of Leyden, from the West Indies, although not mentioned by Van Osten or Com- 

 melin. It is generally said, that about the same period all the courts in Europe were supplied 

 with early fruits from Holland. ^B^nard admits (quoted in Repertory of Arts, 1802,) that 

 this was the case with the court of France, so late as the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. 

 Miller informs us that Le Cour paid great attention to gardening, and especially to the 

 culture of wall-fruits, and that he tried the effects of different kinds of walls and modes 

 of training. Speechly, early in the eighteenth century, made a tour in that country, 

 chiefly to observe the Dutch mode of cultivating the pine and the grape ; they forced, he 

 informs us {Tr. on the Vine), chiefly in pits and low houses, and produced ripe grapes 

 of the sweet-water kind in March and April. The Low Countries are celebrated for 

 good varieties of the apple and pear. The supplies of these articles sent to the markets 

 of Brussels, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, are equal, if not beyond any thing of the kind to 

 be met with elsewhere in Europe. The climate of Flanders suits these fruits ; that of 

 Holland is rather adverse to flavor, from its moisture ; but peaches, pines, and melons 

 attain a larger size than in France. Tournay is so much celebrated for its pears, that the 

 Ghent Society, in 1816, offered a prize for " the best explanation of the causes of the 

 superiority in size, beauty, and flavor, of the pears grown at Tournay." (Hort. Tour, 333.) 

 Forcing in pits and frames, is carried to great perfection in Holland, and melons and 

 pines are, at the present time, sent to the London and Paris markets, and sold for very 

 moderate prices. 



147. The culinary vegetables of Holland are l)rought to great perfection. All the plants 

 of culture, and especially the cabbage tribe, turnip, onion, carrot, &c. are grown to 

 a large size, and very succulent. Of plants edible in their natural state, as the parsley 

 and other herbs, and the fungi, they have excellent varieties. For leguminous crops the 

 climate is sometimes too moist. Brussels is noted for the greens or sprouts, which bear 

 the name of that town ; and Van Mons informs us {^Hort. Trans, iii. 197.) that they are 

 mentioned in the market regulations of that city so early as 1213. The Caledonian 

 Tourists, in 1817, found the markets of Ghent and Amsterdam better supplied with 

 culinary vegetables than any in Holland. The cauliflower was excellent. 'l"he Dutch 

 also excel in asparagus, carrots, and purslane. 



148. Forcing-houses have been long in use in Holland, but the date of their introduc- 

 tion we have not been able to learn. It is singular that they are not once mentioned in 

 the early editions of Van Osten, published from 1689 to 1750 ; but Adanson [Families 

 des Plantes, Preface,) writing about the latter period, speaks of the hot-houses of the 

 Dutch in terms which evidently refer to forcing-houses. Orangeries, and botanic houses, 

 we have seen, (133.) were in use so early as 1599. Within the last twenty years the demand 

 for forced productions has greatly diminished in Holland. Summer, or what are called 

 main crops, are now chiefly attempted, both in public and private gardens ; but after the 

 annexation of Holland to France, and since its subsequent union with Flanders, tlie 

 spirit for enjoyments of even this sort, has declined with the means of procuring them. 



SuBSECT. 4. Dutch Gardening, in respect to the planting of Timber-trees and Hedges. 



149. Planting is not very general in Holland. In a country so thickly peopled, and 

 so conveniently situated in respect to marine commerce, it is not likely that much 

 ground would be devoted to merely useful plantations. In the more inland parts of 

 Flanders, there are natural forests and extensive copses ; these have been, and continue 

 to be kept up, and in some cases increased in extent by planting land too poor for culti- 

 vation. In Radcliff's Agricultural Survey of that country, some account will be found 

 of their management. We observed, in 1819, some belts and clumps forming, in the 

 English manner, on some waste lands near Cambray, and that the Duke of Wellington was 

 planting on his estate at Waterloo. Between Aranagoen and Rhenen, a tract of land, 

 several miles in extent, and no better in quality than Bagshot-heath, is planted with 

 Scotch firs, Weymouth pines, beech, and birch; and many hundred acres adjoining 

 have been sown with acorns for copse, and enclosed with thorn hedges. 



150. Avenues, hedge-rows, and ozier-holts, are the principal plantations of the Dutch. 

 In tliese they excel, and the country in consequence resembles a series of gardens. 



