CHAPTER VI

BULB BARNS, NAMES, AND GROWERS

There is, without doubt, a certain charm in bulb barns; not perhaps

quite the charm of an old English barn, wherein there is ever a brown

twilight and never a straight line, and it is still possible to think

of the Good People coming to shelter on wet nights. Dutch barns, even

the least well kept of them, are too orderly for that. They are rather

too foursquare and deficient in the unexpected annexes and the

mysterious doors leading to nowhere and anywhere which are part of the

true fascination of barns. Nevertheless they have attractions; they are

warm-coloured, lofty, silent, and full of a pleasant dry smell; they

are essentially not people’s houses though, especially at some seasons

of the year, they are houses of quiet, stored life.

[Illustration: A BULB HOUSE]

Every grower must have a barn; the big men, of course, more than one,

the number and size varying in proportion to the gardens. Those of the

little men are sometimes rather makeshift places, wherein, at other

times of the year, other things are kept and the true character of a

bulb barn somewhat lost. The true character is, pre-eminently,

orderliness; seen at perfection a bulb barn is, in its own way, as

typically Dutch as a hyacinth, it is the perfection of order and

system, and yet somehow cosily human too. Round the sides of the great

barns there are shelves with upturned edges; down the centre is a

stand, or two stands with an aisle between, if the barn is very large,

and these, too, are all shelves or trays, tray upon tray nearly to the

roof. Against the walls there are light ladders, easy to move when the

upper trays have to be reached. In the corners are heavier and longer

ladders leading to the stories above—when there are any, as there often

are in the bigger barns. Here the bulbs are brought, sorted according

to kind and size and quality; here they accumulate from early June,

when the snowdrops and aconites are brought in, on through the summer

months till all are harvested and the barns are full, wonderful quiet

stores of waiting life.

Many of the bulb barns have windows, herein also differing from the

true English barn, where the primitive fashion of lighting by the open

door still maintains, and is all that is necessary. In Holland it is

necessary to have at least some barns with windows, and windows that

open, for they have to be left open when the tulips are first brought

in, so that the bulbs may dry and get ready to be cleaned. The cleaning

of all bulbs, which consists in removing the old outer husk and

presenting the bulb dry and shining as we see it, is usually done by

women in a big barn not far from the grower’s office. The work is not

hard, though the hours are long, and the wages, seeing that it is

unskilled labour, rather low. The principal objection to it is the skin

irritation that it causes, though one hopes that those daily employed

get hardened to that. One sees quite old women at the work,

grandmothers sitting on benches or upturned baskets, their brown

wrinkled faces bending over the bulbs, their long gold earrings,

possibly the only treasure left of some inherited store, dangling. And

beside them young girls, with round rosy cheeks and demure eyes, which

do not—at least openly—seek those of the men who pass to and fro

carrying the deep baskets full of bulbs. One seldom or never sees any

of the typical peasant head-dresses among the women who work at the

bulb-cleaning, presumably the workers are not drawn from the class who

still wear them. But one does see a beautiful neatness—a general

impression of cleanness, of blue cotton, neat straight hair, and wooden

shoes; an appearance a good deal more neat and picturesque than the

average of poorer women-workers in England; unless, perhaps, one

excepts those who are employed in one branch of pottery-work, where the

necessary uniform is print sun-bonnets and overalls. There is no

flirting in the barn, practically no intercourse between the men and

women, the men simply carry in the basketsful of freshly-lifted bulbs

to be cleaned, and carry out those that are done. No doubt when work

ceases or dinner-hour comes some young people find each other out. It

would be clear waste and much to be regretted if they did not.

The men employed in the bulb gardens work from about six in the morning

till seven at night in the summer; in the winter, of course, when the

daylight is short and the work less, not so long. The thing which

strikes one most about them is how much cleaner they are than any

English workers on the land. But it is not fair to ascribe this

entirely to native characteristics and ideals; the soil and conditions

of the bulb district are entirely different from those of any

agricultural part of England. It has been said of the men employed in

the bulb fields that they do not care about flowers, merely regarding

them as daily work and having no more æsthetic appreciation of them

than of turnips. Of course it may be so, but personally I rather doubt

it; although, as has been urged, they certainly do not grow flowers for

themselves. In the bulb district, one never sees blooming cottage

gardens as in England, but then land there is so valuable that

comparatively few people can afford to have gardens at all; and those

that do are both so poor and so thrifty that they cannot keep them for

pleasure only, but must turn their wee patch to the best food-producing

account. In the bulb district there is no waste land; no broad

margins—“God’s gardens,”—beside the road; no tangle of leeks and roses

beside a tumbling-down cottage door; no grass-grown marigold-studded

stretch of brickwork surrounding the common pump. There is no waste, no

weeds, no margins, and, alas! but little beauty about the dwellings of

the work-people. Yet none the less it seems they love flowers, often

they are to be seen carrying them home, and seldom one passes houses

with no vase of them in the window in blooming time. And this, surely,

argues a real love of flowers, when one comes to think that they are in

themselves neither rare nor valuable here, many of the cut blooms

thrown away almost as much as the poppies in our English corn-fields.

Of course a certain number of the flowers are sold in Dutch towns—as in

the towns of other countries, some few growers even may grow a small

quantity for that special purpose. But, again, in the purchasing of

them, the charge that the working-classes have no æsthetic love of

flowers would seem to be negated, for, though the prices of cut

flowers, considering the quantity grown, are relatively high, many of

the purchasers are workmen. One sees them on pay-day carrying home

their purchases with the same evident care and admiration that one sees

similarly bestowed by the better class of English mechanics and

workmen, when on Saturdays they carry home the bunches of wallflower

and violets that they buy in the streets.

[Illustration: FLOWER-MARKET, HAARLEM]

There are in Holland, besides the workmen and the great growers, others

concerned in the bulb industry, a whole lot of very small growers,

simple folk, who for the most part live in the numerous little villages

around Haarlem, Alkmaar, and Leyden. They own but one field, or perhaps

two, and combine with bulb-raising vegetable growing or cow-keeping.

They, with their families, do all the cultivation themselves, planting

and lifting the bulbs, the old folk or the children cleaning them,

working in the patriarchal co-operative way. These men may be seen in

Haarlem on Mondays in the bulb season (August to October); they come to

offer their bulbs to the exporters, who cannot for themselves grow

enough of some of the sorts in most demand, or who do not find it worth

their while to give up their land to producing the cheaper varieties.

Later on the bulbs themselves will come to Haarlem, by canal boat—if

the canal is handy, or perhaps on the back of the man who raised them,

or perhaps brought by the good-wife, who may come barefoot along the

sandy road, only donning her shoes on the outskirts of the town. The

authorities of Haarlem will have no bare feet in their streets, their

sense of delicacy forbids; even the fishwives of Zandvoort, who walk

better than almost any other western women, have to put on the wooden

shoes they carry, in addition to their burden of fish, when they have

crossed the sand dunes and near the city.

But, of course, not all the less-important growers are in such a small

way; some of them are substantial well-to-do men cultivating quite a

considerable quantity of land. Certain of them grow almost exclusively

for one or another special exporter, so that they seem to the

uninitiated to be his men, though in reality they are not at all. It is

these men who may sometimes be seen during the bulb season in the

exporters office, or sitting with him in the veranda of his house,

talking of the weather and the condition of trade over a glass of

schiedam and a Dutch cigar, in the old-fashioned leisurely way that

still maintains in parts of Holland. Cheery, comfortable folk these,

speaking neither English, French, nor German; Dutch of the Dutch, and

not easily to be known by the foreigner.

In the ordinary bulb barns there are two things to be guarded against,

mice and fire. Against the latter there is insurance, and one would

think there should not be much danger of it in those barns where there

is a rule forbidding the workmen to smoke while within. There are some

barns, however, where there is no such rule; where the master feels

that justice demands he should allow his men the liberty which he, with

the true Dutch love of tobacco, cannot do without himself. There is one

dear old man who usually smokes at meals and very often in bed, to the

danger of his bed-curtains; I do not think that he, even if cruel fate

compelled him to refrain himself, could find it in his heart to forbid

his workmen the well-loved pipe; certainly they all smoke everywhere in

his barns, but, so far as I have heard, he has never suffered loss by

fire.

Mice can give much trouble to bulb growers; they are very partial to

some kinds of bulbs; they eat them in the ground unless they are driven

out by deep digging and laying the earth open to the frost beforehand.

In the barns they naturally assume that the grower has kindly put up a

good store for them. But by traps and cats and poison and wonderful

Dutch orderliness they are kept under. In a bulb barn at night one

hears few of the mysterious rustlings and patterings that make an

English barn suggestive of hid but active life.

[Illustration: HYACINTH FLOWERS GOING TO MARKET]

There is one other thing to be guarded against in some few barns, that

is frost. Not in the generality, of course, the ones where are

accumulated the ordinary bulbs of the trade; but in the ones where

there are stored things for spring planting, such as gladioli,

begonias, hemerocallis, dahlias, and other and choicer bulbs and

tubers, the frost is a very important consideration. Some barns are

very carefully protected against frost; some I know are carefully and

systematically warmed during the winter months, and never, winter and

summer, is the range of buildings empty. Standing in one of these, a

curious thought comes; one realises, as one looks at the crowded

shelves and remembers those of other barns beyond, that, could some

cataclysm destroy the ornamental flora of the world, but leave

untouched this range of barns with their contents (as Noah’s ark in the

Deluge), there would still be a good start for repeopling the world

with flowers. Representatives from all quarters of the globe are to be

found in those barns, bulbs proper, and corms, and tubers, and all the

variously named houses of stored plant life. Besides the hyacinth and

tulip of historic fame, and the humbler crocus and snowdrop, there are

calochortus of California, tigridias of Mexico, begonias of Jamaica,

tuberoses of Persia, gloxinias and achimenes, cannas and crinums,

amaryllis and arums—flowers native to all parts of the world, brought

in the first instance by indefatigable collectors, who often have faced

real enough perils in their work—the cold in Siberia, the heat in

Africa, hunger and thirst, the ever probable risk of robbery and

violence of the Kurds in Central Asia, the happy hunting-ground _par

excellence_ of collectors. No romance in the bulb industry now? Why, it

is full of romance! And not the smallest of it, at least in the eyes of

some, is the patient work, the ceaseless, never-beaten perseverance and

experiment by which the adventurously brought plants are acclimatised

to the chilly western countries, and cultivated and varied to the

manifold forms in which we find them now grown in garden and

green-house, and catalogued under various names.

The names are something of a trouble to growers, at least some that I

know. “Why,” asked one who, be it remembered, regarded his work with

seriousness and veneration, “Why will your English people call the

flowers by such foolish names? For an instance, ‘Torch Lilies!’ Where

is the torch? Where the lily? It is no lily, see the root, see the

flower. And for torch, or for ‘flame flower,’ as you sometimes also

call it, there is no resemblance; there is even none of the

waywardness, the unsteadiness or quivering of flames; these things, I

grant you, are in some flowers, as the pampas grass, but not in this,

it is a stiff, a formal flower. Yes, more like to a red-hot poker, as

also you call it. If you must have some other name than Kniphofia

(though I do not myself perceive that it is necessary or the one easier

than the other), if you must, I say, well then, it is perhaps best you

have ‘red-hot poker,’ it is at worst but childish and shows no mistake

in classification. But you would far sooner have it a lily, I know; all

things must be called ‘lily’ now, I cannot tell why—Gladiolus, ‘the

Sword Lily,’ Vallota, ‘the Scarborough Lily,’—the _Scarborough Lily_!

One can almost as well have called it the Margate Potato!

“It is the one thing I have against the English amateurs—not all, of

course, but many—they will not call a plant by its name, they will have

what they call a ‘simple’ or perhaps ‘old-fashioned’ name. But it is

ridiculous. If a flower has long had a simple name, as the primrose,

the foxglove, well and good; if it has had it in the common language so

long or longer than it has another of the botanists, why then one has

no quarrel with a man for using it. But if it is a flower of late days,

and there has come to it first the name of the botanist—the man who

makes it some other ‘simple’ name, which is also quite erroneous, and

seems to class it as lily or as some other when it is almost as soon a

cabbage—is nothing less than a child. Nevertheless for these we must

disfigure our catalogue with such names as Torch Lilies and the like.”

And certainly he and other growers do so “disfigure” their catalogues,

for a grower is a man of business. A rather curious mixture of the

commercial and the connoisseur; a practical man of business and a

gardener, but, above all things, one who loves his work. With the Dutch

grower, at least those of the older school, and I think the modern too,

work stands first. There is no hastening through with it, so as to

devote time and energies to sports and hobbies; sport does not play a

large part in the Dutch grower’s life, and other hobbies are made

tributary to the one great interest. There was one old man who was at

heart an artist, in his far-off youth it is possible he cherished

dreams; but when necessity and circumstance made him a grower he put

the dreams away, though he kept his paint-box. On a Saturday sometimes,

locked safely in his office, he still took out the little box of

somewhat dried paints; he could no longer draw, his hands, steady

enough for any delicate operations of his work, had long lost their

skill. But still he sometimes carefully coloured the illustrations in

his catalogues, the real flower standing in a glass before him, and the

names of the paints he employed set down, so that he might more fitly

describe the true colours of the flower in the next catalogue compiled.

They were not always beautiful results he produced, but there was

something quaintly beautiful and withal pathetic about them and him.

[Illustration: A BULB-GROWER’S GARDEN]

Other growers there are whose tastes are scientific, or perhaps for

photography or the microscope. These, too, are turned to account;

exquisite photographs of flowers illustrate the bulb lists; patient

examination of pollen and plant parasites, careful and systematic

experiments with soils and fertilisers, give help and enlightenment in

the growing and varying of the bulbs. Others there may be who have had

some thought of another profession before family circumstances gave

them to this life, but they are not the worse growers on that account.

They would not enlarge leisure to practise arms if their tastes were

military, or to read theology if their leaning was towards the

ministry; but they would be content to do their duty truly and

honestly, serve God and love their neighbour, and give to the work they

had undertaken the whole of themselves.

This, then, above all things strikes one, a grower is a man steeped in

his work; he lives in the midst of it, he rises with it, and goes to

bed with it. On his few holidays he goes to see the achievements of

others in it, or, better still, the working of nature. He goes to see

other things too, no doubt, he has other interests—pictures, or music,

or literature, or languages—he is no narrow uncultivated man; but his

work stands first, a long, long way first, he and it are curiously and

indissolubly one. So for this reason I say at the last, as I said at

the first, those who would see and know the bulb gardens of Holland

should also know the men who for generations have grown the bulbs, and

loved and understood them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

APPENDICES

... dans leur sympathie, ils m’ont dû garder place,

Car ils ne savent pas donner à moitié,

On conserve longtemps un beau fruit dans la glace,

Les gens de climat froid sont de chaude amitié.

Et puisque vous avez cette aimable pensée

De vouloir que mes vers vous présentent là-bas,

Dites bien tout d’abord à la foule empressée

Que mon cœur se souvient des nobles Pays-Bas.

Du pays généreux qui ne sait pas proscrire,

Qui s’ouvre à tout martyr, à tout persécuté

Où chaque citoyen dès l’enfance respire

Avec le vent marin, l’air de la liberté.

Enfin de ce pays que l’art et la pensée

Plus que tous ses trésors, rendent illustre et grand,

Et que vous voit passer dans sa gloire passée

Esprit de Spinoza, palette de Rembrandt!

FRANÇOIS COPPÉE.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I

HYACINTH CULTURE AT HAARLEM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER I.—INTRODUCTION

Saint-Simon, writing in the year 1768, declares there were at that time

in Haarlem nearly two thousand named varieties of the hyacinth, and we

may suppose they had already been about forty years in cultivation on a

soil which seemed particularly adapted for the purpose,—a fine upper

stratum of grey sand, superposed by the action of the sea on a thin

subsoil of peat, so that Nature prepared, it seems, many thousand years

in advance to produce the delicately-tinted and exquisitely-scented

flower, which rises as if by magic out of the cold earth in a few

weeks’ space.

One well-named variety, “Sceptre of David,” reminds one of the long

moral preparation of one people chosen out of the nations of the earth

(a stiff soil to work), before the long-desired of the hills should

come, when there should come a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a

flower should rise up out of his root.

If there are “correspondences” in the material and spiritual worlds,

the flower that cometh up in a day has its root in the ages.

The hyacinth is one of the most perfect results of man’s Art—Art, for

Saint-Simon is persuaded that the hyacinth has become what it is

principally through cultivation, and without human patience and

perseverance—if nature had been left entirely alone—a much less

pleasing and exquisite flower would have appeared.

Every year new varieties are developed, and hope springs eternal in the

breast of the cultivator. Haarlem, the Paradise of Flowers, may be

especially described as the home of the hyacinth.

Upon his arrival at Haarlem, the stranger is so dazzled with the

spectacle of the wonderful and brilliantly coloured carpet spread

before his eyes, that he does not at first realise there is yet further

joy to be found in the singular beauty of certain species and varieties

taken individually.

There he sees acres of hyacinths, double and single, in uninterrupted

ranges of pure colour; the only intervals between the rows being the

little grey sand paths, to enable the cultivator to reach the flowers.

It is difficult for the imagination to picture a piece of earth so

brilliantly enamelled with flowers, and yet such variety and beauty in

detail. The rarest and finest specimens are put apart from the rest in

chosen spots, and these again are arranged in symmetrical order, with

such taste and so unsullied and trim, that one can hardly believe

Nature has been allowed any hand at all in the arrangement. The

florist’s art seems to have triumphed almost too completely. Well, one

may say the florists of Haarlem have played the predominant part, and

their long experience, aided by the succours of reason, have shown them

how to assist Nature by seconding her efforts, and thus to raise her to

a stage beyond herself. In any case, the flowers they cultivate seldom

reach such a high state of development elsewhere. However active and

industrious they may be, no amateur, with all his talents, has ever

reached to such surprising perfection—in strength and form of stem and

blossoms; or to such brilliancy of colouring, though many possessing

both talent and experience have spared neither trouble nor expense in

their endeavours to produce the same result. They are inclined to

attribute their want of success to the nature of their climate and the

soil, and like to regard Haarlem as a place especially privileged in

these respects.

If amateurs had any idea of the spirit of emulation rife among the

Haarlem growers, and the way their whole attention is absorbed,—how

unceasingly they labour and continually verify their experiments,

always reflecting and improving upon them and making fresh

combinations,—they would then know the work is not impossible, and they

need only be endowed with the indomitable qualities of the Dutchman,

and they might produce the same results.

There is no doubt that there exists, even in Haarlem, a sensible

difference between growers of the first class and the more second-rate

cultivators; for, although all are imbued more or less with the same

spirit, and enjoy the same advantages of soil, climate, etc., yet some,

through learning and experience, rise superior to the rest in this line.

If in other countries amateur growers kept more in touch with one

another, and co-operated as do the Haarlem cultivators, there would be

less occasion for despair. For a good deal of their success comes from

their united efforts and experiments, so that among them all they have

many ways of knowing how to preserve bulbs, to propagate them, and

guard them from destructive accidents.

Nobody knows exactly where hyacinths come from originally—the name of

the hyacinth called “Orientalis,” whose origin can be traced back till

it is lost in the obscurity of ages—seems to imply that this flower

originated in the East, and there has been much discussion about the

fact that Moses in the book of Exodus speaks of the colour of the

hyacinth—but whether he refers to it only as a colour, or as a flower,

or as a precious stone, it is impossible to say—for it has been

differently translated in various languages. Saint-Simon tells us that

Dioscorides, in the time of Vespasian, describes a flower he calls

“Hyacinthos” in these words: “L’Hyacinthe a les feuilles des plantes

bulbeuses et la tige dodrantale (c’est-à-dire de trois paulmes, pans ou

empans de haut, on n’est pas d’accord sur cette mesure non plus),

faible, et plus mince que le petit doigt, de couleur verte, dont le

haut s’incline sous le poids d’une tête chargée de fleurs

purpurescentes.” People have argued indefinitely on the precise shade

of “purple,” and to this day they have not decided if it should be more

red than blue or more blue than red. The general opinion seems to be

that the original hyacinth was the colour of the natural wild hyacinth

(which is a Scilla?) which grows in the woods, where the red variety is

not nearly as commonly found as the blue.

On the other hand, the first species may have been red, for in old

fables it seems the hyacinth was thought to be red. Ovid relates how a

flower sprang from the blood of the young Hyacinthus,[2] whom Apollo

slew by accident with a quoit. Others, like Pliny and Pausanias, say

the blood of Ajax, slain near Salamis, was changed into this flower.

[Footnote 2: Unless blue blood was spilt.]

Whatever its original colour, and whatever country it came from, it is

certain that many species have been produced by the florists of

Haarlem, and have entirely originated in their gardens. Yet it is to be

remembered that all came from the old original stock, however different

they have now become. Their natural simplicity has been lost to a

certain extent.

Florists divide hyacinths into four classes:

1. _The Single Hyacinth_—the corolla divided into six segments.

2. _Semi-Double_—only slightly double, with a few petals irregularly

disposed behind the single.

3. _Double_—the outer petals lined with an equal number of other

petals in regular order.

4. _Full Hyacinth_—which has a heart as full of petals as it can hold.

These four classes furnish a great number of varieties. We cannot

define further without going into their distinguishing features and

numerous subdivisions.

The Full Hyacinth possesses the greater number and best varieties. It

is important a hyacinth should belong to the best (one of full)

varieties—but this is not sufficient to constitute a good flower. The

petals should grow in very regular order—especially those within the

heart of the flower, and the petals should as well be curved back very

evenly at their tip. They should also be of a beautiful clear and

decided colour, and this is a great charm in a hyacinth. As well as

being as perfect and decided as possible, the colour of the inner

should harmonise agreeably with the colour of the outer petals.

In this respect there is nothing to be found to surpass the Gloria

Florum Suprema[3]—the blossoms being perfectly disposed the full length

of the stem, which rises tall and very straight, but is, unfortunately

a little too thin to support the weight of the flowers. The petals are

very pure white, and their tips fold back with the greatest regularity,

forming a perfectly symmetrical bud (or button). Colours such as blue

and black, red and white are satisfactory combinations. White

hyacinths, as a rule, are the most delicately shaded, but each variety

has a beauty entirely its own.

[Footnote 3: No longer in existence.]

Of every colour there are kinds which obtain high prices, but the

beauty or merit of a flower is not exactly determined by the monetary

value—for people pay for novelty; the rarity it is which enhances the

value. However, they must, besides, have other essential qualities.

Gloria Mundi and François Ist, and other blues, which used to be the

only ones which could at all compete with Gloria Florum Suprema, have

at last found their rival among the white varieties. “Og Roi de Basan,”

“Le Comte de Provence,” etc., lose nothing by comparison. Some of the

reds, Rex Rubrorum and Mine d’Or have as many points in their favour.

There are now hyacinths of almost every shade. But only at Haarlem are

thousands of varieties and shades to be seen together, and there one

can feast one’s eyes to one’s heart’s content. When a new kind is

raised from seed it causes a great sensation.

Saint-Simon, after expatiating at length on the endurance of the

hyacinth through centuries of growth, ever reproducing itself with

renewed vigour,—showing no sign of exhausting the stock, says:

“Cependant cet oignon si merveilleux, éternel, pour ainsi dire, dans

l’imagination et présent aux yeux pendant tant de siècles, ne dure

effectivement que quatre à cinq ans.”

The hyacinth is propagated by its offshoots or young bulbs. It also

reproduces itself from seed. From the seed new varieties are produced.

Hyacinth bulbs will bloom in any direction they are placed, even upside

down—the flower will grow downwards in a vase of water.

If you take the bulb at the moment of planting, that is, when it is

beginning to show the tender green point of its shoot, the first thing

to do is to examine if it is healthy. It should be round and full, and

not shrivelled; though each variety differs slightly in form, yet all

should be properly rounded in appearance, because this shows the bulb

is in good condition, nor should it be too light in weight for its

size. If it is, it shows it is drying up inside and is deficient in

sap. But to be small in size does not matter, for some of the beautiful

red varieties have very small bulbs, and very often single hyacinths

have larger bulbs than the double.

There is a kind of double hyacinth, white with a red heart, which is

known by its outer tunic, which is always wrinkled and defective. In

spite of its appearance, by its weight and form one may judge if it is

in good condition. The roots often grow like a crown round the base of

the bulb, and the space in the centre is called the “eye” of the roots.

This space is covered with a membrane; and in choosing bulbs, this is

the part you must first examine carefully to see if there are any signs

of decay. There should be no marks of damp or of mildew in the eye at

the base of the bulb.

When the time draws near for planting, the bulb should show little

swollen white points at the base where the roots are to come.

The tunics or suberous leaves (what is called skin on an ordinary

onion) are always covered over with a thin, dry, reddish skin, which

falls off after a time, but is at first useful in protecting the other

tunics when the bulb is in the earth, for it is planted in the dampest

season of the year. No tunic entirely embraces the circumference of the

bulb, but only about two-thirds of it. The tunics are really an

extension (in the bulb) of the long green leaves, only the part of

these leaves which show green above ground fall off in the end of the

year, and the base of them, which remain within the bulb as tunics,

spread and increase till, when they are pushed by each year’s growth

from the centre to the outside of the bulb (by the growth of new stem

and leaves within), they get weaker and thinner, until at last they

turn into the dry, red, outside skin, which finally decays and falls

off.

The tunics are of the same substance as the rest of the bulb (which is

composed of fleshy scales), and the difference is so gradual that it is

impossible to see where the fleshy substance of the bulb begins to

change into the suberous quality of the leaves, and yet there is a very

marked difference between the bulb and its leafy scales; they are,

however, an undetachable whole, and you cannot pull off the inner tunic

leaves of the hyacinth from the base, as you can pull off the leaves of

an artichoke.

As soon as the bulb is taken from the ground it begins to grow and

increases rapidly during the three months it lies on the shelf, and all

this time it lives on the sap-nourishment accumulated by it when in the

earth. The sap concentrated in the bulb can preserve it for a great

length of time, but it is not quite sufficient to enable the bulb to

finish all the work it has to do, and if it flowers it will not have

strength enough to bring its seeds to maturity. (Saint-Simon here

observes that this is not attributable to the bulb having no roots, but

to its inward indisposition.)

[Illustration:

“WHEN SPRING UNLOCKS THE FLOWERS TO PAINT

THE LAUGHING SOIL”

]

Some people imagine that a bulb which has been kept from flowering can

reserve itself for the following year. Many such experiments have been

made, and bulbs have been kept back on the shelves and have not been

allowed to flower; they have invariably perished, and, growers say,

scarcely a year passes that they have not tried the experiment,—they

have lost every bulb which was not put into the ground. As a rule the

sap in a bulb will be sufficient nourishment during its ordinary growth

till January or February, but after that it will begin to grow mouldy

and go bad. The moment it is put in earth or over water, in the proper

season, the bulb, which is just beginning to be exhausted, pumps up sap

so vigorously that it begins at once to throw out roots from almost the

first day, and growers dare not move them again, even a few hours after

they have been put in, to send them away, however carefully packed,

even a short distance, for fear the fresh moisture they have sucked up

so quickly should cause them to rot, and they even consider it a

dangerous process to change them from one place to another, in the same

bed, if they have been but half an hour in the ground. The roots, which

are in such a hurry to show themselves when first the bulbs are

planted, perish as quickly as they grow. They stop growing before the

flower is in full bloom, and are always quite dried up before the seed

begins to ripen. While the root is perishing the flower continues, the

stem grows, and all the flowers expand completely. When the flower is

quite over and the seed is left to ripen, the sap goes into the leaves,

which lengthen considerably, then these die in their turn, till they

separate from the bulb of themselves.

CHAPTER II.—BULBS

It has already been shown what sort of appearance the _outer tunics_

present, and it has been explained how the tunics in general are

formed. We are now going to push our examination further. After

divesting the bulb of seven or eight tunics (or fans), one comes (_A_)

upon a little thin flattened thread of crimson colour, like a line. It

is, as it were, embedded in one of the tunics; it starts from the base

of the bulb and rises to the extreme top.

Continuing to take away again the same number of tunics, one comes upon

a second thread (_B_) like the first, _A_, only that it is less red and

thicker; then, for the third time, taking off another seven or eight

tunics, one meets with a third line or fillet (_C_), very like the two

first, with this difference, it is quite white and much thicker. Under

the last fillet are the new leaves (or fans), beginning to bud, about

seven or eight in number, and in the centre of them is the stem, which

is going to flower in a few months.

Now all the tunics are supposed to be taken off, and only the three

fillets or threads which we spoke of are left (_A_, _B_, _C_). Fillet

_A_ is all that is left (within the bulb) of the stem which flowered

eighteen months ago.

Fillet _C_ is the remains of the stem of the last flower borne by the

bulb, six months before.

Fillet _D_ is the stem which is about to flower in six months’ time

(the flower buds are already sufficiently formed to be seen), and _E_

contains the stem and tunic leaves, which are to come into bud in

another eighteen months.

If, when the bulb is in full flower, you divest it of all its tunics,

till you come to the flower stem,—you will find at the base of it a

very tiny bud; if you take away the stem, which easily breaks off, you

will find the bud remains firmly attached to the base of the bulb. If

you open the bud with a penknife, you will see it is composed of six or

seven little leaves (or fans), and inside a tiny stem, furnished with

buds, which has begun to grow already, and from the moment the bulb is

laid on the shelves it increases till the time comes for putting it

again in the earth. We have been speaking all this time of the double

hyacinth. The single hyacinth is somewhat differently constructed, for

it usually throws out several shoots from the sides as well as from the

centre. The single bulb does not appear to last so long, for its

fillets are fewer, but the number of flowering stems it produces, and

the irregularity of their growth, makes it difficult to follow it in

its various stages of development as exactly as one can the double. By

dint of observing, year after year, bulbs, both those in a good state

of preservation and some partially decomposed, it has been discovered

that the bulb always loses the same number of outer tunics as it gains

interiorly new ones. When once a bulb has acquired the regulation

number of tunics, it will always keep to the same number year by year,

and nevertheless every year it is putting forth seven or eight from its

centre. The outer tunics, which we call “red skin,” regularly shrivel

and decay in the earth, and thus they disappear.

The central (fans) or young tunics, when they turn into leaves, do the

work of an air-pump; they are the lungs by which the plant lives; they

dilate in heat and contract in cold. When dilated they take in the air,

with all with which it is impregnated, and they give it out again with

the regularity that an animal breathes through its lungs.

Plants do not like the shade of trees; they need open air and sunshine,

and they like places where they catch the dew and rain and mist; the

moisture thus obtained through their leaves is better for them than

water poured upon them from a watering-pot.

Planted in hot-houses or under glass they do without much water,

because the hot air produces vapour by the sun’s rays from above or

from the fire beneath, and it is necessary to introduce a little air in

order to let it evaporate (but the plants must not be chilled by cold

seizing them in the process). Hyacinths which are protected by planks

sometimes do better than those under glass.

The planks are lifted and the plants find themselves exposed to the

open air, this is only done when the air is not likely to injure them.

To be kept constantly under glass or in a room sometimes affects their

colour and shape. It also spoils their colour to be exposed to heavy

rain or a very hot sun, which exhausts them. The leaves (as the leaves

of a tree) turn on their pedicels one side to the earth, for one

surface of the leaf sucks in moisture and the other gives it out. What

they receive through the upper surface by day they give out through

their under surface at night by a process of evaporation.

When the bulbs are planted the leaves (or fans) are already pushing

forth a green shoot. The gardener does not feel particularly uneasy if

the frost touches the tip of the shoot, but they are very much afraid

of (the frost) its reaching the flower-buds within the shoot, for if

their tops are nipped by the frost, the hyacinths will be disfigured.

If any one or two of the leaf sheaths get yellow or diseased they can

be cut away without injuring the bud, and neither will the bulb itself

suffer, as in any case the leaves drop off in the end of the year.

It is evident now that Nature works in the bulb from the interior to

the exterior, and this principle must be well borne in mind by the

cultivator.

CHAPTER III.—YOUNG BULBS

Having thoroughly examined roots, leaves, and tunics, we now come to

the organs of reproduction, and as the young bulbs form them themselves

very oddly and irregularly at the base of the old bulb, it is very

difficult even for a connoisseur to judge whether any little bulbs are

coming, and still less can he foretell how many he may hope for.

Sometimes they are numerous, and on single hyacinths twenty-four have

been known to develop on one bulb, but on single hyacinths they develop

very irregularly, while on the double they are more regular in their

growth; growing from the centre; though, as the central stem with all

its leaves grows, the new little bulbs are pushed more and more to the

sides—sometimes they push through to the outside of the bulb, sometimes

between the tunics, wherever they can get air.

Each baby bulb contains the same number of (fans) leaves as the parent

shoot, and develops in the same way—only that the first flower of the

new bulb is very thin and small. The tunics partake of the same bulbous

substance which forms the base of the bulb until it grows to the height

(or point) when it begins to take the suberous quality which

distinguishes the leaves from the bulb substance, and so the tunics, as

far upwards as they partake of the bulb substance, possess the same

capacity of producing young bulbs, which grow from them in the same

manner as from the base.

Some gardeners, in order to multiply their bulbs more rapidly, perform

the following operation: with the point of a penknife they cut into the

base of the bulb (the point turned upwards and inwards), turning the

knife round inside the bulb, the base is cut out (with crown and

centre) in the shape of a cone—the upper portion forming a concave,

exactly fitting the convex of the base (which is the interior which has

been separated by the knife).

The separated base forms no stem the first year, and the inner tunic

leaves (fans) are little and poor, and seem hardly to have strength to

grow, but they form themselves into tunics quite well, and are grown

enough by the following year to cover the stem, which, however, is not

quite developed as it should be till the third year—then it is as good

as any other of its species. The inferior or lower part scarcely ever

produces young bulbs after it is cut from the rest.

The two parts of the bulb should be carefully put into very dry sand,

covering them about two inches—they must be left some little while

exposed to the sun, which would burn them if not well covered with

sand: they must then be put in a window or in some place where they are

well preserved from damp; they are thus left for four or five weeks—the

superior part turned top upwards—the under part anyhow, it is a matter

of indifference how it is placed. In four or five weeks’ time the upper

portion has developed such a number of young bulbs that they are

injuring one another.

The baby bulbs are by this time perfectly formed, and one can count

their leaves or tunic leaves (fans), six or more, and each possesses

its stem.

The upper part (of the bulb operated upon), consisting of tunics

without base or crown, which is thus able to produce so many young

bulbs, can also manage to nourish them during their early growth

(though without roots).

This operation will sometimes save a bulb when it is beginning to decay

at the base, and it will thus produce bulbs when the decayed part has

been cut away. The bulb called “l’Eveque” has a way of bringing forth

young bulbs like buds at the base of the flower-stalk—one or two young

bulbs will be found adhering to it an inch or so above ground. These

little bulbs are as well formed as if they had come from the base and

had been nurtured in the earth. Perfect bulbs can be raised from them

by cutting the stem an inch above and an inch below the part to which

the young bulbs are attached; they are then put by in earth, and

treated in the same way as those which had the _conic operation_

performed on them; and just as those were grown and nurtured, simply

fed by the tunics—so these obtain their sap for the first year entirely

at the expense of the stem, and without starting any roots on their own

account. Never more than two bulbs grow thus upon a stem, while very

often nearly thirty appear on the upper part of the bulb, which has

been separated from the lower part (cone shape). The bulbs grown on the

stem take a longer time in coming to perfection than those that start

from the base, as a rule in their first year they seem to reach to the

same stage as a three-year-old bulb which has been raised from seed—and

follow the same gradual course of development, not producing a perfect

stem in the beginning.

It is a well-known method with gardeners to _cut_ their bulbs in order

to give air and outlet to the young bulbs that are coming. They are

simply sliced across (not very deeply) underneath, at their base;

sometimes they are slit crosswise, good care being taken the knife does

not cut into the growing flower stem in the centre (the centre of the

cross-cuts meeting a little to one side to avoid the central stem). By

this means this year’s shoot is preserved, and when the bulb bursts

asunder (along the lines cut for it, through the strength of the young

bulb-shoots pushing their way through) a principal bulb forms itself in

the centre, which by the second year is as perfect as any.

There is no part of a bulb which can be pointed out as exclusively

serving for the production of young bulbs. They come sometimes from the

centre, sometimes from the stem—bursting open the bulb and becoming so

like it in form that gardeners have some difficulty in distinguishing

the parent bulb from the new. It seems inconceivable that Nature should

put such strength into such a delicate production as the young bulb;

when once it finds space to develop itself there is no part of the old

bulb it will not force to let it through. The angular form of the young

bulb comes from the kind of resistance it meets and moulded by the

space in which it is free to expand. If it grows on the outside of the

bulb, it is concave on the side which joins the round side of the bulb,

while on its outer side it is round.

After the first year the young bulb becomes its normal shape, like

those which are raised from seed. It is difficult to ascertain if a

bulb is going to produce young ones or not,—it is easy to be mistaken,

though the conic operation will show clearly in a few weeks if young

bulbs are going to develop. It seems scarcely possible that those which

develop more naturally can force their way through the tunics without

aid, and do their work in the space of one year.

It has been found that when young bulbs have not strength sufficient in

their first year to burst the tunics, their development is much

assisted by the bulb being cut. The different experiments which have

been made prove convincingly that a bulb can bear many amputations

safely, and if at any time a sickly bulb has to be cut, one may be

pretty certain to get young bulbs from it by taking care _to keep the

wound made by the cut quite dry_.

There are some bulbs, such as François Ist, which may exist years

without producing a single young bulb, while others produce at so great

a rate that one only wishes they would stop. This shows that young

bulbs are plentiful, and may grow in all parts of a bulb,—only that in

some they find more resistance than in others,—and the difficulty they

find in working their way through the harder sorts causes the slight

difference in the forms of the bulbs in the different species. Though

all look very much alike to the casual observer, there are nevertheless

differences between them. There are some famous growers, such as George

Voorhelm, who seldom makes a mistake though he owns 1200 sorts. Each

sort has its own regular and distinctive method of reproduction, and

peculiarities which mark one species never become accidental in

another; each kind keeps to its own manners and customs.

Nature being ever obedient to laws, certain knowledge of her ways is

the more easy to acquire—the law of species will be the same in a

thousand years as it is to-day. Culture has certainly improved species,

and finished what Nature could not by herself complete. Some accidents

have become thus a second nature, remaining permanent if another

accident does not again occur to disturb the existing order.

CHAPTER IV.—SEEDS

Although there is a way of propagating hyacinths by seed, like other

plants, yet it should be known to all that it is seldom that a double

hyacinth produces seed, and such a thing has not been known as a seed

(from either double or single hyacinth) ever producing a species at all

resembling the hyacinth from which the seed is taken. “La Perruque

quarrée,” a red hyacinth, has produced “La Comète”—a very fine sort,

and a splendid red, but it has no resemblance to “La Perruque quarrée,”

and yet they are about the nearest in likeness that have been produced.

There is no visible difference between the seeds of double and single

hyacinths. Gardeners are more hopeful of raising double flowers from

the seeds of single hyacinths than of raising double from the seeds of

double. They have not yet found any principle to go upon in the choice

of seeds, however many experiments have been made. Some have thought a

well-formed hyacinth in its seventh year, being then in its prime, is

more likely to produce double flowers from its seed than it would be if

ten or fifteen years older. It is supposed that the seed of a full

hyacinth, which has its petals redoubled to the centre of the flower,

possesses an advantage over others, or double may be raised from its

seed, but it very rarely produces seed at all; when it does, success is

still very uncertain. Some like to try semi-double; some follow one

method, some another, few obtain the same result twice over. Some

amateurs, once upon a time, longing to obtain a new sort of flower,

sowed the seeds of a single yellow hyacinth, very pale in colour, and

of quite a small and common sort; they were lucky enough to obtain

splendid flowers of a very good white, the centre a perfect yellow,

stems and blossoms all superb,—“Saturne,” “Heroine,” “Flavo Superbe.”

“Og Roi de Basan” also derives its origin from the stock raised from

this seed.

Countless experiments have been made, and all tend to show that flowers

produced from seed never resemble the flower from which the seed was

taken. As a rule they differ in every point, shape, colour, and height.

Nature insists so much on variety that even seeds taken from the same

seed-vessel do not produce flowers alike. Some may be red, others blue

or white, large or small, as the case may be, sometimes they are

fortunate enough to get several double varieties from the seed of the

single hyacinth. It must be confessed, added to other difficulties

there is this: it is four years before the seed produces its

flower—that is, in an ordinary way, for sometimes it is more advanced

by one or two years. As during the course of four years the bulbs are

taken up three times out of the ground, it may sometimes happen that

the experiment has failed through negligence, but there has never been

any doubt at all about the fact of a seed never producing the same kind

of hyacinth as the parent stock.

One should not cut the hyacinth stalk, or separate it from the bulb, if

seeds are to be taken from it, until the ovaries are yellow and

beginning to open and show their seeds, which should be already black.

Then they can be cut and put in a place where they are protected from

sun and rain, and when the ovaries are quite dry the seed can be taken

from them and very carefully kept (not wrapped up or covered) until the

time for sowing them, about the middle of October. Growers who have no

interest in preserving the seed believe it is a bad thing to exhaust

their bulbs by leaving the seed to ripen on the plant. The earth that

the seeds are thrown upon should be well prepared (I shall describe its

composition presently).

The seed is visible enough to be spread about without the necessity of

mixing it with sand, as is sometimes done with vegetable garden seeds.

They must not be sown too thick, and about an inch deep. When it is

beginning to turn cold they must be protected from the frost by a

covering of manure, leaves, or tan. The seed, which begins soon to

germinate, is very sensitive to heat and cold. The parts of the seed

are not unlike a fruit. It is first covered by a strong black skin, and

under this a fleshy substance. This contains an almond, within which is

enclosed the germ; this develops in the same manner as in the seeds of

all plants that are called by botanists “one lobed” or “monocotyledon.”

During growth this almond part of the seed detaches itself from its

wraps.

When the grain is put into the ground in the month of October it

swells, and the germ, piercing through the _pericarp_ or fleshy part of

the seed, begins to develop itself. The little leafy shoot which pushes

upward is the part that botanists call the _plumule_, and the part

which pushes from the central axis (or plantule) is called the radicle

or little root. During the first year the little root is always

tuberous or knotted. It does not yet draw sap from the earth. It is

generally agreed among botanists that the plumule and radicle (the

plant and little root) at this stage draw their nourishment from the

cotyledon or seed-lobe, to which they are still joined. This lobe goes

on nourishing the plant till the bulb has already taken form, and takes

in nourishment from the earth (through its base).

The thin round leaf-shoot which comes up remains _bent_ a whole year

before it has gained sufficient strength to rise straight. The first

year the root is only a thin thread; sometimes it grows very long and

is full of knots, then it is organically diseased, and the bulb will be

very weak and worthless. They often die when the root is thus deformed.

To make a well-formed bulb the root should have only one knot at the

place where it comes from the seed; upon this the bulb forms itself. At

first it is composed of a single tunic, and this tunic is joined and

completely closed on all sides.

At the end of one year (after sowing the seed), if the bulb were taken

up, one would find this tunic lined with two other tunics exactly like

it.

The bulbs being still very small, they exhaust the soil very little, so

that the first year growers do not take the trouble to take them up.

But an amateur, who raised a great many from seed, used to say he

thought taking them up every year certainly assisted their growth.

After it has been eighteen months in the ground the bulb has gained a

certain consistency; it is now composed of four tunics, each of which

encloses it entirely, the outside tunic appearing brown and dry (as if

the drying process had begun, for this outer one has to shrivel away in

the earth next year). The leaf-shoot still looks thin and round like a

rush, but it holds itself straight, and has gathered strength since

last year. The second year (about the time it has to be taken up) it

has lost its outside tunic, but has still three left, completely

surrounding it, but within the inmost envelope the base of the

leaf-shoot or fan (which now shows a double shoot) is already spreading

and forming in the centre of the bulb a tunic, like the tunics of the

proper (grown) bulb; that is to say, it wraps it only two-thirds of the

way round its circumference. The roots have now strengthened. The

following year they are yet stronger. The bulb casts off all its

binders, the early tunics which enveloped it completely (like a

bandage). After this it enters into its mature state, the leaves,

instead of clinging together like a round rush, separate, slowly

detaching themselves and taking the shape they are to preserve to the

end, though every year they increase considerably.

From the time the bulb loses its first closed tunics it is able to

produce its flower, which it never can do while it remains with closed

tunics. The first flower has a long feeble stem, which bears one, two,

or three small blossoms, but these are enough to show the sort of

flower it is going to be. If it is single it will remain a single

always, neither will its colour vary again, and it can be classed among

the red, blue, or white of its kind, but it will grow more perfect and

improve in height, size, and colour. If the flower turns out to be

double, the growers are delighted, and then they will spare no pains in

developing its beauty, for they know not what degree of perfection it

may yet attain.

When the bulb is _three years old_ (having a treble shoot, and having

lost its last completely enveloping tunic) it possesses only the

ordinary tunics, which are formed by the expansion at the base of the

leaves (these envelop only two-thirds of the bulb).

The bulb, when _four years old_ (having developed more perfect leaves

and begun to produce flowers), is composed of about twenty tunics.

If the flower, during the _fifth year_, continues to develop and shows

to advantage in colour, form, etc., the growers’ hopes rise higher

still, but they cannot tell even yet if the flower will fulfil its

great promise.

A bulb which has grown too rapidly will sometimes throw out young bulbs

(or offshoots) at four or five years old, but never before it has

_once_, during the course of its life, put forth a flower. This fact is

important to remember in regard to observations to be made later on, on

the subject of vegetation.

In the ordinary course of nature the bulb does not arrive at its final

state of perfection until its seventh year. The grower delights to note

its yearly growth in grace and beauty, till at length it becomes

_précieuse_, then he is fully repaid his care, and the kind is for ever

fixed, and will never vary again, and it will produce young bulbs which

will, in their turn, produce again, and all will perfectly resemble

their first parent bulb (though it has happened very seldom indeed that

flowers have changed in colour, but this will be explained).

Growers call the flowers they obtain by raising from seed “Conquests.”

They share and exchange among themselves these seeds of promise, and

sell to each other the third quarter or half of the bulb productions,

which, however, should not be parted with unless there are a certain

number of young bulbs to be divided. The prices they pay for these

invaluable seedlings would astonish an amateur. They enhance the value

of the bulb, for which the fixed price is sometimes above 1000 florins.

Some are worth as much again. Growers usually keep notes of the origin

and date of bulbs.

Some hundred years ago double hyacinths were thought little of; they

were almost unknown. Swertius, in 1620, gives a list of about forty

kinds of hyacinths; none of them were double. The gardens of George

Voorhelm belonged also to his grandfather, who had already tried

raising hyacinths from seed, and whenever he made a Conquest, Pierre

Voorhelm would reject any which seemed out of the ordinary, or out of

proportion to the rest of his flowers, for in those days they took a

pride in the formal and regular arrangements of their flower-beds. He

took care, especially, to destroy double hyacinths when they appeared,

without waiting to see what they might become if they were allowed to

develop. He was only anxious to keep flowers which promised seed. It is

certain that double flowers have not a seed-bearing quality; they are

not formed for maturing the seed enclosed in the ovary, so that any

flower without this particular good quality did not fail to be

rejected. No one took the least pleasure in the idea of a double

hyacinth; it was rather regarded as a monster (or freak of nature),

just as at the present day nobody cares for a double tulip.

Pierre Voorhelm fell ill, and being quite unable to visit or attend to

his plants until the hyacinth season was nearly over, he happened then

to see a double hyacinth (the kind is now lost) which had been

forgotten, and had not been thrown away as usual; it was very small,

and he only liked it because it seemed to match very well with the

single ones—so he cultivated it with the rest and obtained bulbs from

it. He found it was much admired by amateurs, who were ready to pay a

good price for it. So he took to cultivating the double as well as the

single, and soon began to be as anxious to find them among “Conquests”

as before he was to get rid of them.

Of the double species the first known was named “Marie,” this and the

two kinds that followed are now lost. “Le Roi de la grande Bretagne”

existed only seventy years—this was rare and much sought after, and the

price rose to many thousand florins. This bulb, imported to hot

climates, grew infinitely better than in Haarlem; for it soon died in

cold or damp spots. From this time great attention began to be paid to

the cultivation of hyacinths raised from seed.

The number of “Conquests” has now become immense, and many more grow

bulbs than in former days, and every grower makes his own catalogue, in

which his “Conquests” are known under names which are kept in all the

lists which are re-written every year. In this list there may be

flowers of different colour bearing the same name—such as “Gloria

Mundi,” which is classed with the blues; the same name re-occurs

classed with reds and whites. Frequently double-flowering bulbs of

different colour have the same name—so that it is as well, when

ordering a particular bulb, to specify and enter into details when

writing the order. Then mistakes will be prevented, which are as

distasteful to the grower as to the dissatisfied purchaser. Growers do

not all agree in classing their bulbs, some for example classing among

reds a hyacinth which another would call _white with red heart_, and

which a third might call pink and white, or flesh colour. Besides which

the exact shade or _nuance_ differs perhaps in every garden—and it is

not so easy to class hyacinths in a way to satisfy everyone, any more

than it is easy to produce a completely satisfactory Method of Botany.

Seasons are variable, and colours of flowers are much affected by

changes of weather. 1767 was a very disastrous season by reason of the

cold north wind which prevailed in the early part of the year. Red

hyacinths were infinitely poorer than the preceding year, which was a

particularly favourable one to bulb growers.

One must make allowances for seasons and accidents, and one ought not

to expect the bulbs sent off annually by the growers to be always

equally good, for in some years they are more successful than in

others—also the same bulb which flowers splendidly, as a rule, may take

it into its head to yield a very poor flower, though it may be planted

in the same soil—between two others which are doing their best; one can

see no cause why they should be so uncertain, except perhaps they pump

in sap more vigorously at one time than another. It can be accounted

for sometimes by the fact that the bulb itself is feeling disposed to

throw out young bulbs, and the sap is being drawn away from the

flower-stalk—or it may have suffered from a cold draught, when it was

lying on the shelf in the winter—or it may be it is feeling the damp.

CHAPTER V.—ORGANS OF REPRODUCTION

The various species of hyacinths, though apparently different and

distinct, are essentially alike. Bulbs of one sort differ very little

from those of another—the leaves are always alike, their stalks grow in

the same way—their blossoms, though infinitely varied, are arranged in

the same regular order—each connected with the stem by a little thread,

called the pedicel.[4] The double scarcely differs from the single,

except in the blossom. We have already followed the gradual course of

the growth of the bulb, and described its general composition. We will

now go back to the single hyacinth, for in explaining its work of

reproduction it is easier and more convenient to dissect than the

double flower.

[Footnote 4: The calyx or flower-cup, being coloured or petaloid in its

nature, is now called the corolla, but the old-fashioned word is here

used—the pedicel is the little stalk which attaches the flower to the

stem (or peduncle).]

[Illustration: A BOATLOAD OF FRAGRANCE]

The calyx or corolla forms at the base (through its shape) a chamber or

room in which the “ovary” is found, but detached from it. At the point

where the calyx is narrowed in at the entrance of the ovary chamber are

the stamens. The parts of the corolla (or divided sections which curl

back in the hyacinth) are called petals.

The stamens are attached to the interior of the calyx, and from the

base of the stamen to the pedicel (or little connecting stalk) runs a

fine fibre (which takes the place of the filament which is detached in

other flowers), and this is seen from the outside as a line of colour a

little darker than the rest of the flower.

The _ovary_ (in the chamber at the bottom of the calyx) is surmounted

by the pistil, the narrow body of the pistil is called the stylus, and

the head is the stigma.

The stamens of the hyacinth have no filaments, they are sessile within

the calyx, and the anthers are also attached at their base (though

there is the fine thread of darker colour to be seen running through

the calyx extending from the stamen to the pedicel).

The stamen is covered, when ripe, with a yellow dust called _pollen_,

this looks like little black grains when under a microscope—they are

little bags full of a kind of clear juice, these, when the stamens bend

over and shed (as pollen), are caught by the stigma at the head of the

pistil. This stigma, when seen under a microscope, is seen to be

composed of very fine valvular cells, which can hold the seminal

juice—the juice passes through the narrow channel of the stylus (or

body of the pistil) into the centre of the ovary, which has an aperture

so arranged as to let it in till it is full, when it closes again so

completely that the seminal juice is held within till the time comes

when the ovary is forced open by the ripening seed.

Before the flowers expand, and while they are still enveloped like a

wheat ear in leafy bandages, the ovary is already furnished with eggs;

but the seminal juice has not yet been deposited, the pistil not being

formed enough to open its cells, but even while the flower is still in

bud, the anthers let fall their pollen, and the pistil opens its cells,

and no one seems to know exactly when it happens that the pollen

explodes its little capsules of liquor or vapour or breath, which form

the seminal juice.

Saint-Simon has a theory that the bees flying to and fro constantly

over the flowers disturb the pollen, often carrying with them some of

the pollen (containing seminal juice) from one flower to another, where

it is deposited and received through the pistil into the ovary, and he

suggests that this is the cause why “Conquests” (_i.e._ hyacinths

raised from seed) never bear any resemblance to the flower their seed

is derived from. But this does not seem entirely to account for their

infinite variety. The invariability of this rule (that no hyacinth has

been known to produce its like by seed) seems to prove that variation

is not subject entirely to accidents of this kind, for surely sometimes

by accident there would come up the same flower as that from which the

seed was taken. Some growers may have taken seed from hyacinths grown

in hot-houses, where the flower has been protected from bees and

butterflies, and thus undisturbed the flower should have had seed which

reproduced its own kind—and why should this occur as an invariable rule

among hyacinths, when other flowers more frequently reproduce their own

kind than not, with them the _variation_ (when their seed has been

crossed by insects) is an _accident_.[5]

[Footnote 5: One feels disinclined to believe Saint-Simon is quite

accurate in his theory, that the variations in kind and colour of

hyacinths raised by seed are entirely due to the interference of

insects, for in the case of bees, it has been observed by certain men

of science that bees invariably prefer to visit flowers, not only of

one kind but of one colour during the course of one journey. That thus

a bee, beginning on a certain white flower, will choose out these white

flowers, leaving out every coloured one of that or of another species,

until, laden with honey, it returns to the hive. (It may be, bees lose

their heads when it is a question of hyacinths.)]

Curious experiments have been made with hyacinths.

Two different bulbs are to be chosen, blue and white, for instance. Cut

them perpendicularly down nearly through the middle, but being careful

to avoid cutting into their central shoots (_i.e._ the future

flower-stalk), then join together the two larger halves containing the

flower-shoot, thus making one bulb of them, so that the two flowers

should appear as arising from one bulb. Then, with a little moss wound

round the closed joins, the made-up bulb may be put into the earth like

any other. This usually results in producing two stems stuck together

back to back, with one skin around them both apparently; and on one

side comes out white flowers, on the other red or blue. Sometimes the

colours get mixed, the colour of one flower shaded with that of the

other, very rarely do the stems grow separate.

None of these experiments seem to explain how it is that a single

hyacinth can produce a double (by seed raising), though perhaps in ten

thousand seeds only two or three will come up double flowered; nor how

it is that the double can be redoubled (through seed), and that once

redoubled, the bulb is constant in giving off young bulbs with double

flowers, which never again degenerate into single; nor will a single,

in its offshoots, ever become a double hyacinth.

CHAPTER VI.—GENERAL

In the cultivation of hyacinths it is impossible to keep to any fixed

rule. Not only must every country and climate make its own, but every

hyacinth has its own ways and customs, its own special qualities and

characteristics. The most distinguished of their species exact a great

deal of attention, care, and management.

“François Ist” finds great difficulty in producing offshoots, and great

care has to be taken of the young bulb, but when once arrived at full

growth it is not as subject to disease of various kinds as are other

bulbs, and it does not die easily. It is the only bulb that still

continued to command a high price twenty-five years after its first

appearance; 100 florins were paid for a single bulb.

“Rien ne me Surpasse” is one of the most perfect blue, but it has such

wretched, weak, faded, even crumpled leaves, one would think the poor

thing was ill, but notwithstanding it produces a handsome,

healthy-looking flower.

“Passe non plus ultra” also looks very deplorable as to its leaves,

they seem hardly able to hold up, and remain lying flat upon the

ground, though quite green and well.

On the other hand, “Og Roi de Basan” shoots up its leaves so straight

and tall, and so large, that they seem quite out of proportion to

others, and the flower is an extraordinary height, overtopping all the

rest. The “Theatre-Italien” is a good red, but it grows very short, and

comes out before its leaves, so that its head may be nipped by the

frost.

“Marquise de Bonnac” is a very delicate colour, but it gives way in the

stem before the flower is fully out. The stems seems to fade and dry

up, and the flower falls on its face, and this is a very tiresome

habit. But it does not seem to damage the bulb, which flowers regularly

every year, notwithstanding these little accidents. A famous florist

told me it was because it had a bad circulation, and the sap hung on

the sides of the bulb, instead of running up the stalk. “Alcibiades”

and “Beau-regard” are also subject to such accidents; but they can be

prevented by planting the bulbs in November, that is, a month later

than other sorts. These kinds give off a number of young bulbs. The

bulbs which multiply very little and slowly have generally better

constitutions, and do not perish so easily. White, with red, purple, or

violet hearts are very subject to decay. “Gloria Florum Suprema”

perishes easily, and its offshoots perish with it, and this is peculiar

to this hyacinth, for most of those that perish easily also multiply

quickly. The kind that multiply fast are generally furnished with more

roots than the others.

Growers are mostly agreed that bulbs succeed infinitely better if taken

up from the ground every year (though it does seem contrary to nature).

It often happens that a bulb, if left in the ground, does admirably the

first and second years, and sometimes a third year it does well, but

after this period it usually catches some disease which turns into an

epidemic, killing all the bulbs in its neighbourhood; it is too late

then to find a remedy, and if lifted it will only rot on the shelves,

as it would have done in the earth. One knows insects are more numerous

one year than another, and thus they too may cause epidemics.

_Lifting the bulb_ is also a method of preserving the young bulb, which

otherwise would perish and decay from damp if left all the year

round—or, as they are sometimes a foot or more below ground, the effort

they make to force their shoots through that depth of earth is too much

for them.

It has been observed that when the sap does not circulate freely in the

bulb it is drawn up into the stem, and this is sometimes occasioned by

overheating the room or green-house,—then it grows tall and weakly, the

flowers are thin and deformed. The more the channels through which the

sap runs into the stem are dilated by too much heat, the tighter they

close again when the sap has finished its action, and the bulb becomes

thinner than it should be, and it is exhausted for the next year’s

growth and appears very languishing. One can see very well how this

comes to pass when it is remembered that the next year’s flower is

actually contained in the base of this year’s stem, therefore what

weakens one weakens the other. If the bulb is very deep in the earth

and the ground is hard, it cannot spread and enlarge itself with

comfort, so the health of the bulb requires it to be lifted every year.

Besides the necessity of _separating_ and preserving the young bulbs

which have to be replanted, there is yet another advantage to be gained

in lifting, for then there is an opportunity of taking away _decayed_

bulbs before the disease is able to spread further through contact with

others.

Having given some ideas on the cultivation of hyacinths in general,

perhaps it is as well to give in some detail an account of the

particular (or individual) care and attention bestowed upon their bulbs

by the Haarlem growers, and perhaps some hyacinth lovers may feel drawn

to imitate their spirit. Haply if they meet with the same difficulties

they may benefit by their experience and observations, and thus

obstacles may be surmounted that stand in the way of the development of

the ideal flower. These obstacles are often the result of soil,

climate, and inexperience.

As a general rule, hyacinths require a light soil, which easily lets

the water run through, but at the same time such a soil is soon washed

out, and it thus in a short time loses its good qualities and richness.

The sulphurous and oily qualities in the soil, that the hyacinth

delights abundantly to suck out of the earth, would be washed away or

evaporate speedily in such soil, even if the bulb itself did not

actually exhaust the spot where it has grown, this is the chief reason

why growers change their bulbs year by year. Damp is death to bulbs. In

a damp soil bulbs can never be preserved for any length of time. The

two general rules,—_Choice of light soil_, _Avoidance of damp_, are the

very foundations of bulb culture. The “couches” or “beds” made by

florists for their finest hyacinths are _remade_ every year, they are

also protected by caisses and layers of manure from the cold in winter,

and they are shaded from the hot sun in spring by canvas awnings. The

old soil (taken from the hyacinth beds) is carried to the garden

borders, where other flowers are grown, such as tulips, lilies,

Fritillaries, etc. The following year hyacinths are replaced in these

borders, and succeed therein marvellously,—thus year by year the same

earth bears alternately hyacinths and other flowers. If the reader’s

patience is not exhausted entirely I must ask him to bear out a little

longer, for I cannot without entering into very minute details give any

intelligible idea of the qualities necessary to provide the sap with

the kind of nourishment it seeks in the soil after the bulb is put into

the ground.

In Haarlem they take two years to prepare the compost, or composed

soil, which suits hyacinths so well. The first year a store of leaves

are gathered together and laid in considerable heaps, so large that

while they are rotting and becoming fit for use the sun cannot

penetrate, for if they were spread about the sun would cause the salts

and oils contained in the decayed leaves to evaporate, for this reason

the heaps are not to be in places where they are exposed to the sun,

nor in a damp place where water can sink in or stagnate. Growers do not

gather in all kinds of leaves, they have observed that oak, chestnut,

beech, and the leaves of the plane tree (which is now becoming common

in Holland), and others of like nature, do not dissolve easily into

earth; while the leaves of elm, wych-elm and birch, etc., are chosen

because their loose and fibrous tissue dissolve more readily into soil.

In the same manner they lay up a heap of cow-manure, which is left to

ferment _en masse_. Every country has its customs, and the Dutch

customs make a real difference in the quality of the materials

employed. All over Holland cows are kept in stalls from November to May

only, and during this time they do not eat grass. All the summer they

remain in the open, night and day, in the fields, so that manure is not

kept or taken up in the summer months. In the winter, when the cows are

fed on nothing but dry food, the manure is of quite another quality

from the summer manure, when cows have grass. This may be useful to

note for those who live in countries where manure is kept all the year

round. Cows are tethered in stalls in so narrow a compass that one can

hardly conceive how they can exist like this. They stand on a kind of

platform between two trenches, before and behind them; in the front

trench their food is put, which they can only get at by pushing their

heads between boards, which also prevent them from reaching too far and

pulling out the food, where it would be trampled under their feet. The

second trench, which is deeper, is behind them to receive the manure,

which is taken away and heaped up in a dry place, where it can easily

drain and where the rain can also run off, for no water or wet is

allowed to settle in or near the heap. As no straw whatever enters into

the composition of this manure, it is not at all like the kind

collected in other countries. I do not know if this is the reason, or

why it is that in England, especially round London, hyacinth growers

avoid using cow-manure as much as possible, the soil there being so

stiff and rich that it suits them better to make it a little poorer,

with an admixture of sand, than to heat it even with cow-manure, which

is the lightest kind of manure there is. First a heap of leaf-manure, a

second heap of cow-manure, and a third heap of sand is now made of sand

brought from the dunes, or it can be dug out of the very ground beneath

to the depth of some feet. Though all the soil about Haarlem and its

neighbourhood is mainly sand, especially near the dunes, where most of

the bulb fields are, yet they prefer to fetch sand from a distance

rather than take any from the surface of their own ground. This sand

should be as carefully examined as is the manure, so that, now that I

think of it, I must enter into further details, which will be thought

unnecessary by some people, but others will be glad to follow the

spirit of our inquiry.

The nature of the soil in Holland proves that the country has undergone

great geological changes, apart from the continual encroachments of the

sea.

It seems that at a very distant period, perhaps before or after the

Deluge, the country must have been covered over with forests, as were

Germany and Gaul in later times.

Either in the great Deluge of Sacred Writ, or during one of the partial

deluges that men of science speak of (but of which no one seems to have

any positive knowledge), these trees must have been thrown down and

laid on the ground in the direction of east to west, in such a manner

that where they fell they form strata (or layers), which time has

reduced to a thickness of six or eight inches at the most.

It may be that this layer of trees was at first exposed to the air, or

(as is more likely) was for some time covered by the sea, which,

depositing sand, pressed and consolidated it into the mass which we now

see, and which is found in all parts of Holland and Zealand, and is

known under the name of Darry or Derry.

It is very easy to perceive that it is old wood decayed into the earth

and reduced to the loose consistency of a sort of brown charred coal.

In some parts bits of the wood have been preserved whole and unchanged.

In the Bailey of Amstelveen, near Amsterdam, bits of wood are often

disinterred which has still “heart” enough to be used as ordinary wood.

Between Alphen and Leyden are to be found in several places whole tree

trunks, ten or twelve feet long. The derry matter is very substantial,

and it is very inflammable; it also holds water, so that it does not

run through from the surface of the peat to the water in the soil below

it. In Zealand, where it is easily taken up, it is forbidden under

penalty of death[6] to carry away the peat, because the water

underneath, which it retains, would do considerable damage in the

island.

[Footnote 6: Two hundred years ago.]

As we now know that piles and blocks of wood can last 2000 years in the

earth without rotting, so we may conclude that these trees (which now

compose the derry or turf) must have been much longer undergoing the

various operations of nature which resulted in producing this change.

No tree roots can penetrate this derry, and wherever sand does not

cover it over a certain depth, no vegetation can grow. Water falling on

the peat is held there, having no means of escape, and the sand on the

top is, therefore, always moist and fresh in proportion as it is near

the derry. If one digs a little hole in this ground, the water which

“fattens” the sand collects in a moment and fills up the hole which has

been made, and this becomes a running spring. These sort of springs

exist all over Holland, and they generally go by the name of

sand-wells. They are kept supplied only by rain, or by the water which

filters down through the sand from the dunes, and this often to a great

distance.

If bulb roots were to reach down to within a foot of this layer of peat

they would be spoilt, and the bulbs would perish. The depth of the

sand-layer over the peat is unequal and different in parts. By

measuring it they test the value of the ground, and not less is the

value measured by the length of time the sea has withdrawn from the

surface. There is no doubt this sand is from the sea-bottom, whether it

was the sea’s action that brought it, or whether it has been blown and

driven by the wind. The dunes have so often shifted that a knowledge of

the variations due to the shifting of the sand in the dunes is enough

to account for sand-layers, for it can be driven very far indeed by

wind from the sea.

A little while ago the village of Sheveling, near the Hague, was

surrounded by the dunes, which were at that time some distance from the

church, now it is much nearer,—the church cannot have moved. On the

same coast the mouth of the Rhine has been choked with sand, and the

sea now covers the castle of Bret, facing Catwick-sur-Mer. The castle

can still be seen at certain seasons at low tide. The sea has remade

other dunes, half a league farther inland. All along the coast near

Haarlem, beyond the canal which connects Haarlem with Leyden, the main

road cuts through these dunes in several places. In the island of

Walcheren, in Zealand, at very low tide can be seen vestiges of the

ancient town of Domburg, where they fish up statues of Nehellenia, a

heathen goddess, and also early Roman inscriptions.

In the present day dunes 100 feet high separate the new Domburg from

the one invaded by the sea, and the Zealanders, through their

marvellous and inventive industry, have succeeded not only in

fortifying themselves against encroachments from the sea, but have made

very extraordinary dykes, like the one at West Cappel, which you cannot

see when you are standing upon it, as it is nothing but a very long

sloping bank or glacis of timber-work, but the slope is so gradual that

the only resistance the water meets with is the long journey it has to

go to reach to the summit of the dyke, which, at its level, is much

higher than the sea.[7] But besides this they covered miles of the

sea-shore with platted straw matting, which they plat on the shore

itself,—this is to prevent the sea from carrying the sand away from its

own shores. These mats have to be renewed almost yearly.

[Footnote 7: Two hundred years ago.]

The sands of Haarlem are all more or less of this nature, and contain

saline and sulphurous particles of matter; the under stratum of peat or

derry prevent these from being absorbed into the ground. The sand also

contains particles which collect in some places and form a very thin

stratum of hard black matter, like that with which some minerals are

coated, and this is not less injurious to vegetation than is the derry.

The great success the Dutch growers have had in cultivating bulbs which

cannot be successfully propagated elsewhere is very much due to the

presence of this sand, deposited by the sea on a matter which,

fortunately, water cannot penetrate.

To return to the three heaps,—sand, cow-manure, and leaf-mould,—the

sand is placed in large heaps to “ripen,” rather perhaps to lose some

of the moisture. The growers from the three compose one general mass,

which they arrange in the following order: _First_, they make a layer

of sand; _second_, of manure; and _third_, of leaf-mould eight or ten

inches deep; they then begin again making more layers in the same

order, until their mass is six to seven feet high. The last layer is

manure, but as this is apt to harden in the sun, they throw a little

sand on the top. When this compound has fermented, six months,

sometimes rather longer, it is mixed up and another heap is made, which

is, however, again unmade and thoroughly remixed. When this soil has

remained a few weeks to settle, it is carried to the beds, where it is

laid to the depth of something like three feet.

George Voorhelm, in his book upon hyacinth culture, says that this

manure should be composed of _three-sixths_ of cow-manure, _two-sixths_

of sand, and _one-sixth_ of leaf-mould or of tan, and he for his part

preferred fresh manure to that which had been kept a year (to

ferment?). He especially warns amateurs against using horse, mule, pig,

or sheep manures; also he cautions them against using mud or cold earth

drawn from wells, or basins where the standing water and mud have to be

occasionally cleaned out; also against any powdered stuff or manures

picked up with dust from the street. He quotes persons who compose

their soil of tan (which has already been in use and nearly lost its

heat) with cow-manure and leaf-mould, using no sand at all.

When the soil is brought to the flower-beds they put the said quantity

beneath the bulbs, making the earth quite flat and even, without

pressure, and placing the bulbs upon the earth, _not embedding them_.

Then they are looked over to see that the bulbs are arranged in the

proper order or according to diagrams marked out for them. When their

places have been fixed, more soil is brought to put over them, great

care being taken to let the earth fall lightly on the bulbs, not to

disturb their position. The last addition of earth is generally not

more than three to four inches deep. In cases where the bulb has to be

brought forward in its growth, or else kept back—and is therefore put

at a greater or lesser depth in the earth—the gardener, in the latter

case, places more soil under the bulb to raise it higher, and this is a

much better method of putting in bulbs than making a hole with a

dibble, or, as some do, thrusting the bulb itself into the earth with

no tool and raking some earth over it, for this plan, besides hardening

the earth all round the bulb (the hole forming a sort of gutter which

holds water!) also runs a risk of bursting the bulb, which may be

already showing roots, or young bulbs hidden within might be knocked

off without its being perceived. The same method is used in planting

bulbs in garden borders. The surface of the earth is taken off and laid

on one side, the bulbs are placed in rows, and are very carefully

re-covered with the soil which was laid upon the side.

The frames used over show flower-beds should be raised not more than a

foot above the earth, and not less than half a foot. If too high, the

air dries the roots; if too low, the damp (from the vapour) may reach

them. The back of the frame should be buried rather deep, so that when

it is necessary to cover the flowers with planks, the frame will be

able to support them, or planks must be put at the back and sides,

fitting into each other, upon which those which form the roof over the

flowers can rest. The frames should be slanting from the back downwards

to the front, to let the rain run off and prevent it from dripping into

the bed. If the cold is very intense, the planks may be covered with

manure to prevent the frost from penetrating beneath. If the season is

a fair one, the flowers may be given a little air; but in cold seasons

it is a risky thing to do, because the early bedding plants are

exceedingly tender, and the heat of the manure, or whatever is provided

to shelter them from cold air, causes a damp vapour to rise inside the

frames, and as this cannot evaporate it falls back upon the flowers,

covering them with a little dew, which, if the cold air were admitted,

would freeze directly. It only takes an instant for young buds to

freeze, then the flowers come out, looking dried up, with burnt tips.

When the cold weather is past the manure is taken off, and air is

admitted to the beds for a few hours in the daytime, care being taken

to cover up again at nightfall. The manure which serves to protect the

bulbs from frost also brings forward young shoots, so that they begin

to show earlier in hot-beds than in garden borders. The slowest and

latest sorts begin the earliest to sprout. They are therefore purposely

not planted so deep in the ground, that they may get more quickly

warmed by sun and air, so it is quite natural that their buds should

pierce through earlier—but the difficulty the sap has in penetrating

and circulating through the very compact structure of these bulbs makes

it very difficult to get them to flower in good time with other sorts.

Growers have to use their skill not only in guarding flowers which are

beginning to show from frost, but also from strong winds, damp, and

everything that can do them injury. One year rats carried away and

stored by hundreds in their holes the bulbs in the gardens of Van

Zomped at Overween,—although they had a stream to cross to get at them.

Growers must be _au fait_ with every possible eventuality, and must

foresee and prevent every possible mischief. They must know exactly the

time by night or day when it is proper to cover or uncover their

flower-beds. Their chosen blooms are covered with tents of canvas,

beneath which they can conveniently walk.

Besides these tents, over the most delicately-complexioned flowers

little parasols are arranged. These are mounted on little rods, which

stick in the ground, and quite protect the flowers, which last several

days longer with growers who give them this protection, and keep their

colour better. When the flowers first begin to expand, our florists

(who work on the principle of never watering) protect them from rain as

carefully as they do auriculas. When they begin to make a show of

blossoms they powder the sand-beds with a light mould, in order to make

the colours look more brilliant against the dark brown background. They

tie the stalks to little wire rods, painted green, leaving the ties

loose, so that none of the blossoms are caught and broken when the

flower pushes up in its growth. The pedicel is very delicate before the

blossom is formed, so that the slightest thing can easily break it.

When the single hyacinths are in bloom the florists open their gardens

to the public. A wonderful sight presents itself on first entering the

gardens, vistas of alleys with flowers of every variety, and kind, and

colour, cut by borders and beds which contain each one kind of flower

only. Hyacinths are in the greatest number. Early tulips, narcissi,

anemones, and others are laid out in successive order. The effect is

surprising. Never, when they are once selected and placed in position,

does a grower ever touch his bulbs again, he dare not disturb them once

they are planted, but if a bulb dies or refuses to grow they may

possibly embed a flower in a pot in its place; it is even permitted to

put a flower like it in a glass vase close to the leaves of the lost

blossom, but they never attempt to take out a weak or unsuccessful bulb

in order to substitute another. The flowers should be arranged

according to gradation, that is, the tall specimens behind; the short

in front; the colours as varied and as brilliant as possible.

The beds have a much more brilliant effect if two flowers of the same

colour are put together, in pairs; some plant each kind thus, double,

throughout the bed. The chief thing in arranging flower-beds is to

manage that all the flowers should be out in full flower at the same

time. It is a very difficult art, but the Haarlem bulb growers are able

to accomplish it. Every bulb has its own particular habit of growth,

one will flower early and another late, there may be the difference of

a whole month between them.

[Illustration: A DUTCH GARDEN IN SPRING]

People come miles to see these gardens, which are in bloom all April

and part of May. Single hyacinths begin flowering towards the end of

March, and last in flower for about twenty days, if the season be

favourable. Single hyacinth beds are usually placed alternately with

double, and the effect is more brilliant. Single hyacinths grow more

thickly, there are sometimes fifty blossoms on one stalk, and very

often several stalks on each plant. The red-single are a more brilliant

red than are the red-double, and single blues have much the most

delicate shade of colour.

About the 20th of April the hyacinths begin to be at their best, the

25th and 26th are ordinarily the days when they are in perfection and

in their full glory. By the 4th or 5th of May they are going over, and

the later sorts are beginning.

In Haarlem they are too carefully attended to to suffer much from the

weather, their cultivators being very industrious, and watch over them,

arranging for the protection even of the most ordinary kinds, for none

are neglected.

When a new piece of land is taken for cultivation, they begin by

trenching it six feet deep, and if they come across a bed or layer of

derry, they do not fail to take it away. In gardens which have been a

long time under cultivation peat or derry is not found, for it is

injurious to vegetation. Pure sand is usually found to some depth, but

they try to dig down below the sand to the earth and dig up about a

foot of it to mix with the soil. The sand corrects the effect of the

cow-manure which is put in, a layer of seven or eight inches deep

(without straw), over the entire surface of the ground, which is then

worked in with a spade. They mix up the manure as much as possible, so

that when well worked in it is to be found to a depth of one foot below

the surface.

It is not a good thing to plant hyacinths the first year in the newly

manured soil; they usually leave an interval of one year before they

put in hyacinths again, and in the intermediate years they cultivate

tulips, jonquils, narcissi, lilies, crocuses, fritillaries, crown

imperials, martagon or mountain lilies, irises, and other tuberous

plants or bulbs which they keep in quantities; they take care to work

the ground well every year, this brings the earth which was below, at

the roots of the last year’s plants, to the surface.

The earth dug, trenched, and enriched (for it must be borne in mind it

is nearly entirely sand) remains for five or six years without need of

manure. After this space of time it has to be worked all over again,

dug as deeply as before and manured, if possible adding more pure sand,

which is found by digging a very deep way down. In winter the beds are

covered with tan or manure in proportion to the strength of the cold.

Growers like the frost to penetrate as far as within an inch of the

bulbs. If it goes farther, it freezes the cluster of buds; and if it

reaches the roots, the bulb is lost beyond redemption. But such a

misfortune seldom occurs, for growers know how to protect them by

increasing the thickness of manure or tan covering. Some heap up the

fallen snow over the beds, believing it is good for bulbs, as it is for

nearly all other plants, especially for corn and oats; while others

take away the snow rather than add to it. Each has good reasons, and

much depends on the time of year, for if it is late snow and the

hyacinths are beginning to put out leaves, a quantity of snow may be

hurtful and cause a fermentation of the sap, which may cause the bulb

to decay.

After the cold weather is over the hyacinth buds begin to pierce

through the manure, and then it can be taken off, and there is nothing

more to be done after that but just to pull up any weeds that make

their appearance. Growers either leave the flowers to fade or else cut

them off, they believe it makes no difference which they do. Some, when

the stalks are left uncut, strip off the blossoms with their ripening

seed-vessels, thinking it preserves the sap within the bulb; others cut

the leaves half-way down, for they grow very long and lengthy when the

flower is dead. Both these methods are clean contrary to the principles

of the art of cultivation. Still, stripping the blossoms does little

harm in comparison with the harm done by cutting the leaves, which have

a most important function to perform, for they now take on themselves

the work of the dried-up roots and feed the bulb, and they breathe in

through their leaves the particles of air most suited for the plant’s

nourishment. The leaves are then entirely maintaining the plant and

keeping the sap in circulation. When the fans or long leaves begin to

fade and dry, the bulb is then pulled up out of the earth—with the

hand, as much as possible, for fear the spade or fork should injure the

young offshoots. The leaves are then cut off altogether, and the bulb

is replaced in the earth _on its side_, being covered up again with an

inch or two of very light soil, such as we described—the bulbs are left

about a month or two in this state. When the time comes for them to be

finally taken up, a fine dry day is chosen. The bulbs are then left out

in the open air for a few hours. (If the sun is too hot, it will make

them “boil,” as the gardeners say, and the sun can kill them as surely

as the frost.) They are then placed on sieves, where they are lightly

shaken to separate from them the earth which sticks to them, the roots

are carefully removed—_carefully_, for the sake of the young bulbs (or

offshoots)—and put away on the bulb-house shelves.

All growers proceed very much in the same way, but those who do not

follow merely mechanically the trade methods, know that every bulb

likes a separate treatment, and they do not take up all the bulbs in

one bed on the same day—they leave the lazy ones, which are slow to

ripen, longer in the ground, and they don’t cut the leaves of the

quickly growing ones quite so soon. When taking up their bulbs, they

judge the quantity of sand to be left to cover them (in the drying

process), according to the need of each one. Experience having taught

that a slow bulb which takes long to develop gains warmth (and the

fermentation of the sap is hastened) by letting it “cook,” as they say,

in the sun. On the contrary, if it is a quickly ripening variety, they

keep it much less time in the oven (that is, under sand in the sun).

These have a little more sand over them, and are stored a little sooner

in the bulb house. One grower said he had for fourteen years planted a

François Ist and taken it out every year exactly in the same state as

he had put it in, it had not changed in form or size, nor had it given

a single offshoot. Another said he kept a Duc de Bourgogne thirty years

in the same way. G. Voorhelm said he had known a bulb look the same for

fifty years, but he did not mention whether it had ever given offshoots

or not.

In the end of June, or about that time, bulbs are put away into bulb

houses. The houses should be perfectly dry, inside and out, for damp is

very injurious—the houses should be thoroughly well ventilated, the

wind allowed to blow through. It is better if the bulb house be made to

open on three sides. When the bulbs have been sometime stored on the

shelves, they are cleaned; they then go through a medical examination,

and if there are any weak or sickly, they are separated from the

others. The evil, if it exists, can be detected by cutting the bulb at

the place where the fans or leaves come off. If the circle of tunics

looks quite healthy, with no stains or spots upon them, there is no

fear of disease—there is none if there is no outward mark of decay

anywhere to be seen;[8] but if there is the smallest spot or mark, the

knife must cut down to the root of the evil. Amputation does not kill

the bulb, and it is the surest remedy. As some of these diseases are

contagious, they can be communicated to others even in the ground,

where they are not so closely packed as they are upon the shelves,

therefore it is necessary to take care to examine them thoroughly in

order to prevent contagion. The nature of these diseases and their

cause is not yet known. The best remedy is amputation of the diseased

parts, and many growers remove everything that has the least appearance

of decay. The great art (and experience alone can teach this) is to

know how to dry the cut wound without exhausting the sap in the bulb,

and to know just the time to put it back in earth,—the earlier it is

done and the more carefully the operation is performed the more likely

the bulb will be saved. The most common disease is an outlet of sap

between the tunics. Another is produced by small green-flies, which are

probably deposited as eggs. Green-fly and centipedes are the most

commonly to be seen. Bulbs left for a long time in the same place are

sure to contract diseases—this is one of the chief reasons why growers

are for ever changing them (even the common sorts), and are always

renewing the soil or putting the flowers in different places

alternately with others. When the growers are ready to replant their

bulbs, they clean them again, taking away the outer red skin or tunics,

which are now dried up, and keeping those adhering to the bulb, for it

would be harmful to a degree to take them away. They put aside the

young bulbs which are strong enough to be separated from the parent

bulb. The method of planting again has been described. I must add that

show-beds should be chosen in sunny spots. Hyacinths cannot bear to be

in the shade, and they must not be put under trees; but as they also

suffer from wind, it is a good thing to have trees not far off to break

the wind.

[Footnote 8: Except new disease.]

In conclusion, it would be a good thing if amateurs were not quite so

prodigal with their bulbs. They grow them in pots or in glass during

the winter, and it is usually their custom, when the flowers are dead,

to throw the bulbs away, supposing them to be good for nothing when

they have blossomed once. Instead of that, they should be left in the

glass jar or flower-pot till the leaves are likewise dead, then they

can be put for half a day in moderately hot sun to dry, and afterwards

placed in earth on their sides, as is done with other bulbs, covering

them lightly with sandy earth, and taking them up in the same way; when

in the autumn they are planted there will be no difference between them

and the other bulbs. If they are round and full of sap when they are

taken up, they can be used again in glass or pots in the house a second

year, if not, it is better to leave them in the open ground. But as it

is sometimes frosty weather when the bulbs are taken from the jars, it

is better to put them away at once in the green-house, covered with a

little sand, and wait till fine weather comes to put them outside for a

month or five weeks in the earth, preparatory to taking them to the

bulb-house shelves—_to plant before the rest_.

Hyacinths can be also grown in pots filled with moss, well pressed down

and kept sufficiently moist. If grown in water, rain-water is best.

Bulbs increase so rapidly that a grower who takes a little trouble to

cultivate, let us say about 300, will find himself in a few years

possessor of several thousand, which he does not care to keep. He will

also have the satisfaction of making Conquests with seeds he has

himself sown, and by exchanging these seedlings he can procure for

himself rare and costly kinds, which he cannot buy; he is thus able to

amuse himself with a collection which affords him much pleasure, and he

is also able to bestow some upon his friends. He may never have been in

the neighbourhood of Haarlem, he may never have learnt so many details

as are here put forth, in the hope that they may prove useful to many a

lover of flowers.

George Voorhelm, in the preface to his treatise on hyacinth culture,

encourages men of other nations to cultivate the hyacinth, and to sow

seeds, and, in his opinion, it would be better that the Dutch should

meet with rivals of other nationalities, for if all produced good

flowers, they would be able to supply each other reciprocally. He

thinks it a pity no other nation should have attempted to second the

Dutch in a work which reveals so wonderfully the many mysteries of

nature as that of the culture of the hyacinth.

Maximilien Henri, Marquis de Saint-Simon, wrote _Des Jacinthes, de leur

anatomic, reproduction, et culture_; also _Histoire de la guerre des

Alpes, ou Campagne de 1744_; _Histoire de la guerre des Bataves et des

Romains_.

Saint-Simon, born 1720; died 1799 at Utrecht. This Marquis de

Saint-Simon was uncle to Claude Henri, Comte de Saint-Simon, founder of

the sect called Saint-Simoniennes. I think the Marquis was nephew of

the Duc de Saint-Simon, author of the _Mémoires of Louis XIV_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

II

THE TULIP TRADE

From De Koning’s _History of Haarlem_ (1635)

Many, no doubt, have heard of the extraordinary mania for tulips in

Holland in the seventeenth century. Dutchmen of all classes, highest to

lowest, forsook their ordinary occupations and business, in order to

engage in the tulip trade.

It is said the mania began first in France in the year 1635, and thence

spread to the Netherlands. Enormous prices were paid, and even houses

and land given in exchange for one bulb.

In Haarlem there stands a house, at one time in possession of the Widow

de Lange and Van Ek—it is numbered W. 3, No. 575. It used to be two

separate buildings, and one of them was known as the Tulip House,

because it was sold for one single tulip. When the last alterations

were made to this house in 1858 there was still to be seen a stone set

in the gable, upon which was carved a tulip, and below the following

inscription:—

1637.

This stone was kept as a remembrance of the famous tulip trade

of the year 1637, “when one fool hatched from another, the

people were rich without substance, and wise without knowledge.”

Since that famous year, according to tradition, the road that led to

the country beyond the Groot Poort and to the surrounding

neighbourhood, where most of the best Haarlemers grew tulips, was

called, in remembrance of all the money lost, “The moneyless path.” The

rage for tulips became intense, and every one was caught by the craze,

and positively some were driven mad by it. Though a few made a great

deal of money, the majority of the new bulb growers and buyers lost

everything they possessed! There is a saying in Dutch, “It is not good

to come to black seed, for then comes poverty.” (Canaries are fond of

eating their white seed first, and then have nothing left but the

black.)

Whoever had a plot of ground planted tulips therein. Rich and poor

alike—house-painters, cobblers, tailors, weavers; in a word, nearly

everyone either grew or speculated in tulips—some sold all their tools

and instruments to buy bulbs. And indeed they might well look forward

to great profits, seeing that the bulbs, which in the beginning cost

but a few guldens, had now risen to hundreds and thousands. The most

coveted and rare kinds it had now become impossible to buy. For one

single bulb 12 acres of land in the Schermer were offered. The _Semper

Augustus_ must have been the rarest and most costly of any, the

fabulous price of 13,000 florins was once paid for it, and soon after

three of these bulbs were again sold for 30,000 florins.

The price of land and the hiring of fields to raise the bulbs in grew

very high. A gentleman was offered 50,000 florins a year for his field

for seven years, in addition to a share in the profits. Such was the

rage for buying and selling, that most of the inns and taverns in the

town were turned into places of Exchange and Mart, where bulbs were

bought and sold even before they could be taken out of the ground. A

book-keeper was employed, who kept a book of all the transactions and

of the profits made, which seemed in some cases very large.

Many men, unused to the possession of so much money, became so very

extravagant that they spent more than their income, and began to live

at such a high rate of expenditure, buying carriages and horses, and

living in such a fashion that only men who possessed untold wealth and

capital could afford to do it.

What was foreseen by more wise and more thoughtful people came to pass.

Everyone having now become bulb-grower, there came to be so many tulips

in the market that prices suddenly dropped, and many buyers refused to

take the bulbs at the price agreed upon, and many quarrels and disputes

arose over the matter. Finally, the States-General of Holland appointed

by decree that, from the 27th of April 1636, tulip-sellers had the

right to force buyers to buy at a price agreed upon (a standard

price?). So this decree stopped very high speculations, and a _Semper

Augustus_, for example, for which previously several thousand florins

had been paid, now fetched only 50 florins. There came a reaction, and

a great number of people were ruined.

In this way, says De Koning, began and ended a trade or commerce in

bulbs, which in nearly all the towns in Holland, but especially in

Haarlem, Leyden, Amsterdam, Alkmaar, Hoorn, and Enkhuizen, was kept up

with such energy that, alone in Haarlem, 10,000,000 florins for tulip

bulbs was paid and received, and the States-General of Holland were

even weighing the advisability of taxing the industry which brought so

much luxury. The little gardens near and in and about Haarlem had both

wide and narrow “moneyless paths,” all of which date from the time of

the tulip mania in the seventeenth century, and remain as witnesses of

the folly of our forefathers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

III

THE HYACINTH TRADE

From De Koning’s _Tafereel der Stad Haarlem_ (1808)

De Koning gives us an account of the hyacinth trade which began in

1730, and which continues to the present day. It was not so astonishing

as the tulip trade, and though the price of the hyacinth did not rise

as high as that of tulips, yet fancy prices were paid for some:—

Passe non plus ultra fetched 1850 florins

Gloria Mundi eenjong „ 650 „

Tempel Salomons „ 450 „

Praal Sieraad „ 400 „

From these figures one can see that the price of a favourite hyacinth

could not be compared to the price paid for a tulip bulb, but to this

day hyacinth culture is a trade by which people can really live

profitably (this was 1808). Not only at Amsterdam, where there are many

fields of hyacinths, but in many other Dutch towns, whence the bulbs

are sent to all countries. In Haarlem many of the bulb growers living

outside the Groot and Kleine Hout Poort had to send away such

quantities to foreign countries that the spaces near their houses

became too small to plant them out, so they were forced to rent more

ground to make new flower-fields, as their trade was increasing so

rapidly. These flower-fields, so neatly and cleanly kept, made very

beautiful surroundings to our town. When the hyacinths are in full

flower they are, with their different colours, row upon row, a very

beautiful sight, and many people are thus attracted to visit our

country. For bulb growers themselves it is a pleasant time; they all

meet and talk over the new sorts, and discuss their culture with no

small degree of excitement; they collect under the shelters erected

over the best sorts, and there stand smoking their pipes and relating

to each other their various experiences and the experiments they have

tried. Prices are no longer so high as in 1730. We have known, even in

our own day, the “Ophir,” now become so common that it has scarce any

value at all, sold for 3600 guldens, which shows what people are

willing to pay for a rare flower.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX

Achimenes, 113

Aconite, Winter, 31, 43

efficacy against poison, 43

Aconites, 105

Alkmaar, 86, 109, 170

Alliums, 45

Alphen, 154

Amaryllis, 113

Amstelveen, 154

Amsterdam, 4, 5, 6, 170

Great Canal of, 3

_Anemone coronaria_, 68, 71

Anemones, 23, 70

legendary origin of, 70

Star, 70

April in the bulb gardens, 9, 78, 83, 161

Arums, 113

Barns, bulb, 5, 11, 52, 104-106, 111-113, 164

orderliness of, 105

protection from mice and fire, 111

protection from frost, 112

Begonias, 73, 113

protection against frost, 74, 112

growing from seed, 74

Bicycles in the bulb gardens, 11

Bulb cleaning, 106, 107, 110

Busbecq, 98, 100

_Bride, The_, 15

Calochortus, 17, 113

Cannas, 113

Catalogues, 15, 116, 117

Cleanliness, 5, 107

Clusius, 59, 63, 71, 75, 76

Colchicums, 34

Collectors, bulb, 44, 113

“Conquests,” 141 _et seq._, 146, 166

Co-operation among bulb growers, 123

Crinums, 113

_Crocus sativus_, 34

Crocuses, 32-39, 113, 161

ancestry of, 33, 35

legends connected with, 35, 36

saffron, 34-39

uses of, 36, 37

Culpeper, 38, 39

Daffodils, 74-82

_Gerrard’s_, 76

_Great Rose_, 76

_Parkinson’s_, 76

_Strange Sea_, 76

_White Sea Bastard_, 76

_Wilmer’s double_, 76

Dahlias, protection from frost, 112

Darry (or Derry), 153, 161

De Koning’s _History of Haarlem_, 168

De Koning’s _Tafereel der Stad Haarlem_, 171

Derry (or Darry), 153, 161

Enkhuizen, 170

_Eranthis hyemalis_, 43

“Fair Maids of February,” the, 40

“Fleur-de-lys,” the, 60

“Flower-de-luce,” the, 60

Flowerdeluce, Great Turkey, 65

Fritillarias, 71-73, 161

_Aurea_, 73

_Crown Imperial_, 71, 161

_Recurva_, 73

_Snake’s-head_, 73

Galen, 59

Gerard, 16, 33, 38, 39

Gesner, Conrad, 99, 100

Gladioli, 10, 15, 16, 115

ancestry of, 33

protection from frost, 112

Glove-gardeners, 89

Gloxinias, 113

Great Turkey Flowerdeluce, 65, 67

Haarlem, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 19, 20, 33, 50, 64, 83, 91, 92, 109, 110,

121-167, 168-172

Hakluyt quoted, 34

Hedges, 9, 17

Hepaticas, 70

Hille, 33

Hillegom, 44

Hoorn, 170

Houses in Holland, 9, 25

Hyacinths, 17-19, 47-59, 91, 113

_Alcibiades_, 149

_Beau-regard_, 149

bees and, Saint-Simon’s theory, 146

bulbs, impossibility of reserving for second year, 128

cleaning the bulbs, 164

culture at Haarlem in the eighteenth century, 121-167

cutting the, 18, 19, 57

disease in, 56, 127, 134, 164

experiments with, 147

_Flavo superbe_, 137

_François Ist_, 126, 136, 148

_Gloria Florum Suprema_, 125, 149

_Gloria Mundi_, 126, 143, 171

grape, 58

_Heroine_, 137

high prices paid for, 142

_Jacques_, 50

_La Comète_, 137

_La Perruque_, 137

_Le Comte de Provence_, 126

legends connected with, 47, 48, 124

_Le Roi de la Grande Bretagne_, 143

lifting the bulbs, 149

manuring the ground, 91

_Marie_, 143

_Marquise de Bonnac_, 148

methods of producing bulbs, 51

_Mine d’Or_, 126

_Og Roi de Basan_, 126, 137, 148

_Ophir_, 172

_Orientalis_, 123

organs of reproduction, 132, 144 _et seq._

origin of, 49, 123

_Passe non plus ultra_, 148, 171

_Praal Sieraad_, 171

preparation of soil, 151, 156 _et seq._

propagation of, 126, 132, 136 _et seq._

protection of bulbs, 56, 131, 158, 162

_Rex Rubrorum_, 126

_Rien ne me Surpasse_, 148

_Saturne_, 137

_Sceptre of David_, 121

selection and cultivation, 50

sowing seed, 138 _et seq._

_Tempel Salomons_, 171

_Theatre-Italien_, 148

the four classes of, 125

the right soil for, 121, 149

use of cow manure, 152, 157

use of frames, 158

use of tents, 159

wild, 124

wood, 48, 58

Hyacinthus, 47-49, 124

_candicans_, 58

_orientalis_, 49, 58

Hymerocallis, protection from frost, 112

“Iohnquills,” 75, 161

_Iris anglica_, 62

_Bakeriana_, 64

_hispanica_, 14

_histroides_, 64

_reticulata_, 64

_susiana_, 17, 65, 66, 67

_xiphion_, 60

Irises, 13, 17, 47, 48, 49, 60-67, 161

legends connected with, 48

new varieties from seed, 62

purple, 15

remedial uses of, 60

Spanish, 60, 63

_Ixia viridiflora_, 16

Ixias, green, 16

Jonquils, 75, 161

July in the bulb gardens, 78

June in the bulb gardens, 10, 19-24

Kniphofias, 115

Land, preparation of new, 161

value of, 13, 33, 44, 108

_Language of Flowers_, the, 38, 69, 97

Leyden, 64, 110, 154, 170

Lilies, 161

Torch, 114

Lily tribe, the, 10

Manure, the use of, 40, 56, 91, 152, 157

March in the bulb gardens, 64, 78

May in the bulb gardens, 9, 78, 161

“Mevrouw,” 8, 10, 17

Narcissi, 74-82, 161

_Barri_, 78

_Emperor_, 78

_Empress_, 78

_Golden Spur_, 78

_Grandee_, 78

_Henry Irving_, 78

legends connected with, 79-81

_Poeticus_, 78, 79

_polyanthus_, 77-79

protection from cold, 77

Red, 77

_Sir Watkin_, 88

_Van-Sion_, 75

_Will Scarlet_, 77

Narcissus, 79, 80

_Clusii_, 75

_maximus_, 75

_Tazetta_, 78

Neatness on the farms, 5, 107

Onions, 45

Orderliness, 5, 105, 112

Over-covering the bulbs, danger of, 31

Overween, 159

Parasites, 31

Parkinson, 16, 33, 41, 45, 49, 58, 59, 76, 77, 87

quoted, 16, 50, 65, 71, 82, 93, 95

Pollarding, 17

Ranunculus, 10, 23, 68-70

_asiaticus_, 68

Roads, state of the, 12, 13

Robinio of Paris, 33

Robinson, 94, 96

Rubbish-heaps, absence of, 5

Saffron growing, 34

Saint-Simon, 121, 122, 126, 128, 146, 147, 167

Sand, 5

_Scilla alba_, 45, 59

medical uses, 59

multiplication of, 43

origin of, 43

_rubra_, 59

_sibirica_, 31, 43-45

Scott, Reginald, quoted, 45

Screens, to protect the farms, 17

Sheveling, 155

Sidney, Sir Philip, 99, 100

Snowdrops, 39-43, 105, 113

legends connected with, 40

liking for neglected soil, 39-40

multiplication of, 41

Soil, 5, 40, 51, 57, 91, 108, 121, 149, 151, 153 _et seq._

_Solfatare_, the, 14

“Squills,” 59

Stoves, 29

Swertius, 142

Tigridias, 113

Tradecant, 76

Tricycles in the bulb gardens, 11

“Trompetts,” 75

Tuberoses, 113

_Tulipa Gesneriana_, 96

_Gesneriana spathulata_, 98

_kaufmanniana_, 92

_turcica_, 95

Tulips, 83-103, 113, 161

_Bizarres_, 94

_Bybloomens_, 94

_Californian_, 17

_Chimney Sweep_, 89

Darwin, 100

disease in, 92

_Dora_, 85

_Duc van Tholl_, 91, 96, 102

feathered, 94

“Flamed,” 94

gambling in, 169

_Gesneriana spathulata_, 85

high prices paid for, 84, 85, 86

_Louis the XVI._, 84

manuring the ground, 91

new varieties from seed, 92

origin of, 96-100

_Painted Lady_, 89

_Parrot_, 95

protection from mice and other vermin, 90

protection of bulbs by straw, 91

_Rose_, 94

_Semper Augustus_, 84, 169, 170

Seventeenth-century mania for, 168 _et seq._

storing the bulbs in the barns, 106

the “breaking” of seedlings, 93

_The Citadel of Antwerp_, 85

variegated, 84

wild, 100

_Yellow Fool’s Coat_, 95

Vallotas, 115

Van Zomped, 159

Vegetables, 9, 91, 110

“Venice of the North,” the, 5

Voorhelm, George, 136, 142, 157, 167

Voorhelm, Pierre, 142

Wages, 106

Walcheren, 155

West Cappel, 155

Women, employment of, 106, 110

Ymuenden, 3

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s note:

Page 39, ‘epedemcal’ changed to ‘epidemical,’ “thing in epidemical

diseases”

Page 106, comma changed to full stop, “store, dangling. And beside them”

Page 146, ‘hothouses’ changed to ‘hot-houses,’ “hyacinths grown in

hot-houses,”

Page 149, ‘they’ changed to ‘the,’ “the effort they make to force”

Page 157, ‘two-thirds’ changed to ‘two-sixths,’ “three-sixths of

cow-manure, two-sixths of sand, and one-sixth of leaf-mould”

Page 157, ‘Alknaar’ changed to ‘Alkmaar,’ “Leyden, Amsterdam, Alkmaar,”

Page 174, comma struck following ‘25,’ “Houses in Holland, 9, 25”

Page 176, sub-entries for ‘Scilla alba’ entry re-ordered alphabetically