HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 67 
GENDBRUGGE NURSERY. 
Among tlie European horticultural establishments, whose connections are 
the most widely extended, whose fame has reached every country, wherever 
horticulture has been able to follow the steady but incessant march of 
civilization, the establishment of M. Louis Van Houtte, in Ghent, 
Belgium, stands undoubtedly in the very first rank. What the old cele- 
brated gardens of a Loddiges for Great Britain, of a Cels and Noisette for 
France, of a Makot for Belgium, and a Schelhase for Germany, have 
been in their most flourishing time, that has, and even in a greater measure, 
now become Van Houtte's establishment, for the whole of Europe. Only 
created about sixteen years since by M. Louis Van Houtte, this nursery 
has, through the able and energetic management of its founder, speedily 
attained its present extension ; and its fame, so readily won, has attracted 
the attention of all friends of horticultural pursuits. 
We trust it will offer a certain interest to many of our kind readers, if 
we try to give, in the following lines, a short but graphical sketch of this 
unique establishment. 
M. Van Houtte's establishment embraces three essentially different 
departjnents, each of which is perfectly distinct and independent, with its 
proper organization and its own body of employees ; but, all three united, 
are diligently and masterly managed by the founder and proprietor himself, 
who guides the manifold branches of this vast concern, in its smallest details, 
as its head and source. 
The three departments, just alluded to, are : 
First. The nursery business, again divided into two departments ; the 
plant and the seed trade. 
Secondly. The lithographic printing and coloring establishment^ and the 
editorship of the Botanico-Horticultural Journal, Flore des Serres et des 
Jardins de V Europe, of which M. Van Houtte is, himself, founder and 
chief editor. 
Thirdly. The Royal Belgian Gardeners' Educational School ; an insti- 
tution founded by the Belgian government, through M. Van Houtte, 
after his design and under his direction, for the education of gardeners, 
scientifically educated and practically instructed. 
Having established these points, we enter now on a description, and find 
in the first department, in the numerous and convieniently constructed 
glass-houses, in the vast number of pits and frames, and dispersed over a 
