Book I. 



GARDENING IN HOLLAND. 



20 



128. T/ie gardens round Rotterdam are generally many feet below the level of the canal. On the 

 Cingle, a public road which surrounds the city are, a continued series of garden-houses nearly a mile in 

 extent; these miniature villas {lust hvfa) being separated from each other only by wooden partitions, which 

 are generally neatly painted. To these the citizens with their wives retire on Sunday to smoke and take 

 coffee. {Uort. Tour, &c. 127.) 



129. The palace-garden at Haerlevi formerly occupied by King Louis, and originally the property of the 

 celebrated banker, Hope, is in no respect remarkable as to design ; but pines are grown there better 

 than in most gardens in Holland, and strawberries are successfully forced. 



130. The Bug d' Are mberg's seat uearEnghien, like many others in Flanders and Holland, was ruined during 

 the excesses of the French revolution ; but the Duke is now restoring it, and has begun with the gardens 

 rather than with the house. Extensive hot-houses are erected and many new fruit-trees planted. The finest 

 part of the park was not injured, and the horticultural tourists visited the celebrated temple of the grande 

 etoile. " This temple is of a heptangular shape, and at the angles on every side are two parallel columns 

 placed about a foot apart. From the seven large sides proceed as many broad, straight, and long avenues 

 of noble trees, affording rich prospects of the distant country in all these directions ; and from the seven 

 angles, and seen between the columns, proceed an equal number of small and narrow alleys, each ter- 

 minated by some statue, vase, bust, or other ornament. The temple is surrounded by a moat lined with 

 polished marble. The old orange-grove is situated at the end ot the avenue. It is one hundred and 

 seventy feet long, and twenty-seven feet wide, and contains one hundred and eight orange-trees in tubs, 

 many of them, as is the case in different old family-seats of the Netherlands, presents from the kings of 

 Spain 200, 300, and 400 years ago. The trees shov/ straight stems of six or eight feet, and globular 

 heads, from which, according to continental practice, protruding shoots and blossoms are pinched off as 

 soon as they appear, for culinary and perfumery purposes. {Hort. Tour, 324. 372.) 



SuESECT. 2. Dutch Gardening, in respect to the Culture of Flowers and Plants of 



Ornament. 



131. The taste for fowers so prevalent in Holland, is thought to have originated with 

 their industry early in the twelfth century, the study of flow ers being in some degree 

 necessary', as affording patterns for the ornamental linen and lace manufacturers. Lobel, 

 in the preface to his Histoiredes Plantes, 1756, states, that the taste for plants existed among 

 the Flemings during the crusades, and under the dukes of Burgundy ; that they brought 

 home plants from tlie Levant, and the two Indies ; that exotics were more cultivated 

 there than any where else ; and that their gardens contained more rare plants than 

 all the rest of Europe besides, till, during the civil wars which desolated this country 

 in the sixteenth century, many of their finest gardens were abandoned or destroyed. 

 Holland, Deleuze observes, had at the end of the seventeenth century, a crowd of dis- 

 tinguished botanists : and was then, as during the century preceding, the country the 

 most devoted to gardening. (Discours sur Vetat ancien et moderne de V Agriculture et 

 de la Botanique dans les Pays Pas. Par Van Hulthem, 1817 j Extrait du Discours pro- 

 nonce, ^c, a Gand, par M. Cornelissen, 1817.) 



132. The botanic garden of Leyden was begun in 1577, thirty-one years after that of Pa- 

 dua. It was confided to Cluyt, a celebrated botanist, afterwards to Bontius, and in 1592, 

 L'Ecluse, from Frankfort, was appointed professor of botany. In 1599 they constructed 

 a green-house, and, in 1633, the catalogue of the garden contained 1104 species. At 

 this time the magistrates, the learned men, and the wealthy citizens were occupied in fa- 

 cilitating the progress of botany, and the introduction of new plants. A ship never left 

 the port of Holland, Deleuze observes, the captain of which was not desired to procure, 

 wherever he put into harbour, seeds and plants. The most distinguished citizens, Be- 

 verning, Favel, Simon de Beaumont, and Rheede, filled their gardens with foreign plants, 

 at great expense, and had a pleasure in communicating those plants to the garden of 

 Leyden. This garden, in Boerhaave's time, who, when professor of botany there, neg- 

 lected nothing to augment its riches and reputation, contained [Index alter Plant. 1720.) 

 upwards of 6000 plants, species and varieties. Boerhaave here exemplified a principle, 

 wliich he laid down (Elementa Chemia) for adjusting the slope of the glass of hot-houses, 

 so as to admit the greatest number of the sun's rays, according to the latitude of the 

 place, &c. These principles were afterwards adopted by Linnaeus at Upsal, and by most 

 of the directors of botanic gardens in Europe. It was in this garden, about the begin- 

 ning of the eighteenth century, that the geranias and ficoidiae, and other ornamental 

 exotics were first introduced from the Cape. The garden of Leyden was visited by Sir 

 J. E. Smith in 1786 {Tour, &c. vol. i. p. 11.), who observes, that it had been much en- 

 larged within the last forty years, and was now about as large as the Chelsea garden. 

 In 1814 it appeared rather neglected; many blanks existed in the general collection of 

 hardy plants, and the hot-houses were much out of repair. It contains, however, some 

 curious old specimens of exotics, as Clusius's palm (Chamerops humilis), twenty feet 

 high, and upwards of 225 years old ; a curious ash, and various other trees and shrubs, 

 planted by Clusius. A new garden, in addition to the old one, and a menagerie, are 

 in progress. In this new garden the walks are laid with a mixture of peat-moss and 

 tanners' bark reduced to powder. Leyden, Deleuze informs us, was, for more than fifty 

 years, the only city in Holland where there was a botanic garden ; but before the middle 

 of the seventeenth century, they were established in all the provinces. 



133. The botanic gardens of Amsterdam and Groningen merit particular notice The former was under 

 the direction of the two Commelins, John and Caspar, and was the first garden in Europe that procured 

 a specimen of the coffee-tree. A seedling of this tree was sent to Paris in 171-1. Two seedlings from this 

 plant were sent to Martinique in 1726, and these the Abbe Raynal observes {Hist, de Commerce, tome xvi. 

 ch. 20.) produced all the coffee-trees now cultivated in the French colonies. This garden still contains 

 many remarkable specimens of Cape and Japan plants. [Jlort. Tour, 218.) 



