1869.] JOTTINGS ON THE TULIP. 211 



allowing only short intervals of rest, tlms giving the bulbs three or 

 four seasons of growth in two years, by this means attaining the object 

 in view. 



Seeino; a notice of this new method induced me in 1840 to make 

 an autumnal sowing of Tulip-seed ; but I failed entirely in producing 

 germination until the following year, when the young plants appeared 

 at the same time as those sown six months later ; and I never after- 

 wards made a second attempt, but contented myself Avith the old 

 plodding system, requiring a little more patience, and have now each 

 succeeding May some new breeders as a reward for my labour. 



The last season of 1868 was, beyond every previous one in my 

 experience, the best for obtaining large quantities of well-matured 

 seed ; so that, if the amateur can be said to make his fortune by his 

 hobby, he surely had it in his own hands, had he embraced the 

 opportunity afforded by such a fine year of brightness and splendour. 

 "Whether under an awning — where the Tulip will rarely perfect its seed 

 — or on the open bed, the result was the same. Seed could be obtained 

 for the mere trouble of allowing the pod to ripen ; and hundreds of 

 young plants an inch or two in length in early autumn bore ample 

 testimony to the quality of the seed. To place the usual glass 

 protector over the ripening pod was not at all necessary to keep out 

 the wet and to retain the heat ; for the heat was most excessive, and 

 the wet most ardently longed for all the time the pods were maturing, 

 and never fell. The consequence is, a finer sample of seed could not 

 possibly be desired — so bright and full, and with the promise of every 

 seed germinating. So there are doubtless some grand specimens in 

 embryo, to appear in some future year, to delight and gratify the fortun- 

 ate possessor, and place his name side by side with Clarke, Lawrence, 

 and Goldham, wdio were all successful in their day; or, later, with 

 Gibbons, noted for his batch of Chellastons ; with Mr Headley of 

 Stapleford, who can outnumber so many of his compeers in new and 

 beautiful varieties of his own raising ; and with Mr Storer of Derby, 

 whose superb Bizarres are the admiration of every grower of a bed of 

 Tulips. 



The parents of this justly- esteemed batch of seedlings were 

 Gibbons's Pilot crossed with Shakespeare; and the colours of the 

 progeny lean, in some to one parent, and in some to the other. But to 

 compare them with either would be giving but a very faint idea of the 

 beauty of the offspring. All are so great an improvement on the 

 parent stock that comparison would fall infinitely short of the mark. 

 I might enumerate a score or more of these beautiful Bizarres, could 

 I only give them each a name, which the raiser unfortunately neglected 

 to do in so many instances, and left them entirely to the fancy of 



p 



