September 8, 1881. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 219 
make the most of it. This garden contains an excellent supply 
of Hybrid Perpetuals, sufficing to insure the second prize for 
eighteen at the well-contested local £how. It has also a good- 
sized Tea Rose house entirely devoted to Marshal Niel, several 
side beds of Tea Roses, and the pride of the place for its elegance 
and novelty—a Tea Rose glass arcade, 57 feet long, 8 feet high, 
and 10 feet wide, which comes nearer solving the problem of how 
to grow Tea Roses in our climate than anything which I have seen 
yet. The basket of Roses I was most obligingly presented with 
contained Teas that would have held their own at any country 
show ; while E. Y. Teas, A. K. Williams, Marie Baumann, and 
others were also very fine indeed for the time of year. The 
size of this garden is just 21 perches ! and Roses have been grown 
here for seven years no less successfully. Part of the secret was 
to be seen near the entrance gate in a high heap of rich loamy 
soil, also in a large barrel on the banks of the beautiful trout 
stream which bounds one side, well filled for occasions with liquid 
manure. The rule is with every Rose that is fresh planted to fill 
in at least a foot square of entirely new soil. The result, when I 
saw the plants, was a high state of autumn excellence ; but 
the Teas under the glass verandah, with open ends and side, 
were more healthy than those in the Tea Rose house. I believe 
it is now generally accepted by the best authorities that, if these 
houses are to answer, the roofs must be made moveable, so as to be 
off at least half the year. 
I think I may promise a hearty welcome to any brother rosarian 
who shall visit No. 2, Palace Street, Canterbury ; certainly he will 
hardly find anywhere a more interesting aud instructive city 
Rose garden.—A. C. 
A WEEK IN BELGIUM. 
[THE FIRST DAY.] 
“ Changes” and holidays have certainly become fashionable 
now-a-days, and are, indeed, regarded as necessities of our being. 
Without doubt constant monotonous toil is enervating, and a 
short period of cessation from labour has a wonderfully rejuve¬ 
nating effect on most constitutions. Yet possibly holiday-making 
is occasionally overdone, and changes do not always result in 
benefit. It is a question if the mechanics’ Saturday afternoon 
is a benefit to all, as with many, unfortunately, it. only affords 
facilities for the waste of that which might be utilised. But 
gardeners, at least, have no Saturday afternoons at their disposal, 
and on few Sundays can they find complete repose for mind and 
body. They, if any body of men do, earn a change and need it; such 
a change they occasionally have, or ought to have, by visiting 
shows. Even the break of a day from mental and manual labour 
is beneficial; besides, at those gatherings most men gain hints that 
they afterwards turn to profitable account. Several years spent 
between garden walls enable me to speak practically on this 
point, and I plead that others may have what I once had the 
privilege of enjoying—an occasional holiday. 
Flower shows have no longer special charms for me, for my 
visits to them mean labour, not rest ; nor do those in England at 
any rate afford much change, for they are strangely alike year 
after year. Foreign shows at least possess some novelty, and the 
late Antwerp Exhibition attracted me over the water, or perhaps, 
to be more candid and exact, it afforded me an excuse for spend¬ 
ing a week amongst old friends and revisiting old scenes in Bel¬ 
gium, for I confess I cared little about the Show it elf, beautiful 
as it undoubtedly proved. I simply wanted “ a change,” and had 
one, pleasant, refreshing, and complete. 
Those gardeners and horticulturists who can command a week’s 
holiday may spend it interestingly in the thrifty little kingdom 
in question, and as inexpensively too, as travelling from one side 
of England to the other, or sauntering by the seaside watching 
the waves and getting melancholy. I never see the sea but it 
reminds me of the walls of a prison and I want to be over, and a 
week at the side of it would certainly make me miserable. The 
facilities for crossing are great, and, considering the provision 
made for the comforts of passengers, wonderfully cheap. It is, or 
rather used to be, the opinion of some foreigners that Englishmen 
“ take to the sea like ducks ; ” but all of them do not do so, and 
it is astonishing how great is the fear of many of what the French 
call vial de mer —the English, sea-sickness. I am able to give 
some idea of what this is like, and perhaps some day may do so; 
in the meantime let no one be deterred by it from crossing the 
“ silver streak.” If the weather is fine they will not have it if 
they do not fear it; if it is rough they probably will fall victims, 
and then they will very decidedly have “ a change.” 
Desiring to have all the time possible in Belgium I elected to 
travel by night, and how quickly and comfortably it is done ! In 
London at 7 p.m., Harwich at 9, and in Antwerp at breakfast 
time next morning. As I know very well a little description of 
the journey will be as acceptable as a disquisition on Orchids, 
Ferns or Cabbages, I shall not confine myself to strictly gardening 
matters. Of gardening exclusively most readers have enough; 
some, and probably not a few, too much. 
From Harwich the sea passage is something under a hundred 
miles, and is crossed in about eight hours, the distance from 
Flushing to Antwerp up the Scheldt being sixty mdes. Whatever 
class a person may travel by rail I cannot advise him to cross the 
sea in the “steerage.” I once saw in a storm about 150 people 
“all of a heap ” and something more, in that uncomfortable part 
of a steamer, and I determined to avoid that part for ever, and 
to advise others to do the same. The steerage is cramped and 
comfortless, the saloon large and almost luxurious, and the cost 
between the two is trifling. Our ship was the Princess of Wales, 
which is evidently popular, for every berth was taken. The saloon 
is like a well-furnished hotel, even to plants and flowers on the 
tables, and everything required can be had at moderate prices. 
It may perhaps not be generally known that the trade in plants 
for ship decoration is a very great one, and that attractive 
plants are a necessary part of the appointments on all ocean-sail¬ 
ing passenger ships. Mr. Bardney could perhaps tell us some¬ 
thing about the extent of this trade at Liverpool. But to proceed. 
Of the sea we saw but little ; it being a wet night and dark we 
“turned in,” went to sleep and dreamt, at least I did. some 
cantankerous man was bent on quarrelling with me ; first he 
pointed at me scornfully, then touched me, then struck me, once, 
twice, thrice, each time harder than before. Although I trust of 
a peaceable disposition it behoved me to exercise an Englishman’s 
privilege under those circumstances, and my antagonist fell 
screaming. The noise awoke me, and my assailant proved to be 
the sides of the berth against which I was being knocked, and the 
scream was the cringing of the ship as she battled with the waves. 
I have known pleasanter moments, but it was better than mal de 
mer, and the day was dawning, and Flushing near. 
The Scheldt is a noble river that creeps through a fertile land 
like a huge serpent. Its curves are so numerous that the distance 
to Antwerp, as has been said, is sixty miles, while an Antwerp 
Pigeon would find its way home in twenty-five miles. The width 
varies from five or six to one or two miles. No one can inspect 
the banks of this river and, as well as he is able, the land beyond, 
without being struck with the great work that was accomplished 
in times past by the enterprise and industry of the Dutch. The 
river is raised high above the land for miles, so high that in some 
places only the tops of the trees are visible and the spires of the 
churches. On each side thousands of acres have been reclaimed 
of the most fertile soil in Europe. The scenery is not picturesque, 
for there is nothing to be seen but long lines of Poplars skirting 
the sides of the ditches, that are, however, invisible from our 
standpoint, and here and there a village with its gables and church 
steeple peeping over the banks. "VVe have none of Nature’s 
grandeur to command our admiration, but the works of man, 
with their comparative tameness yet great utility, predominate. 
An American traveller was astonished at what he saw. “ Ours is 
a great country,” he said, “ but Nature has made it. Our Rocky 
Mountains are magnificent and awe-inspiring ; but we have 
nothing in America like this, and the people who have done this 
work are a great people.” This work of land-reclamation has 
been there so long and passed so frequently that it is probably 
unnoticed by hundreds of voyagers, but unless it was of some 
magnitude it could not have astonished an American who had 
visited all the capitals on the continent of Europe; and his 
verdict must be acquiesced in, that the country through which 
we passed is a monument of the industry of a “great people.” 
But we glide past some rather formidable fortifications aud are 
at Antwerp. 
Before leaving the steamer the traveller should have some 
money changed, if he did not make the necessary provision before 
leaving England. The steward, who is obliging in all things, 
and does not hang about you like a railway porter as if he had 
lost something, will readily give y< u a full Belgian equivalent for 
English coin. True, anybody in any country will take English 
sovereigns, but there is often a difficulty in the way of change, 
and it is well to be provided for all emergencies. You appear to 
have more money in Belgium than in England, for you receive 
25 francs for every sovereign, and in many things the francs go 
there as far as shillings do here. They certainly go as far in rail¬ 
way travelling and much further in cigars. They also go as far in 
cab fares, or rather you can go as far for \Qd. there as for l.v. 
in London ; but the hotel charges are about the same in both 
countries, except as regards soap, and this you had better take 
with you, or you will certainly either have to go without or pur¬ 
chase rather dearly. Water is plentiful in Belgium and they use 
