THE FLORIST. 75 



ceptible in other things ; secondly, because the method of curing the 

 bulbs pursued by the Dutch is never, so far as I have been able to 

 learn, fairly tried in England, nor is the soil or place of their growth 

 out of doors regulated by a due knowledge of the wants and habits 

 of the plant ; and lastly, because, under certain circumstances, it has 

 happened, that persons who plant their forced Hyacinths, after flower- 

 ing, in the open borders, and leave them undisturbed, have found 

 in a year or two that the self- acclimatising powers of nature have 

 restored some of these exhausted bulbs to their original powers of 

 blooming. Now, if this happened but once, it would shew the 

 recovery to be possible ; but, in fact, it happens often, and when no 

 particular care is taken ; leaving us to suppose that it arises from 

 the bulb meeting with some peculiar soil and locality which agrees 

 with its constitution. And this I take to be the true cause of the 

 restoration ; so that sufficient encouragement is really given to those 

 who have the opportunity and the will to attempt the native growth 

 of this beautiful and fragrant flower in England. 



I once tried it, and failed ; and every one who manages matters 

 as I did will fail too. Yet I assure you that even my failure, in 1829, 

 was a very pretty failure as it stood, and attracted several persons 

 from London some miles into the country to see a bed of between 

 500 and 600 Hyacinths under a frame-house ; and those, moreover, 

 of the rarest and most expensive kinds. For instance, there were 

 nine of Quentin Durward in the bed, a sort that at that time bore 

 an exorbitant price in the London market. 



This bed produced me about a pint of seed (the double flowers 

 yielding a fair share of it), which, with the bulbs after flowering, I 

 gave to a nurseryman in my neighbourhood, w T ho having his living 

 to make in the regular line of his business, and therefore being 

 unable to go out of his way for uncertainties, planted the bulbs in 

 stiff clay ground, where, of course, they gradually died. The seed- 

 lings eventually fared no better, although I saw among them a double 

 red of the character of Raphael, but more double, and both deeper 

 and brighter in colour, which in Holland would have commanded a 

 handsome price. 



Probably some of your readers may suppose me a rich person, 

 or, otherwise, one who writes with a magnifying pen ; yet I was then, 

 as now, a curate with a not overburdened pocket, and although 

 the magnificent shew I had that year, and which is remembered still 

 by many in a village fifteen miles west of London, had its origin in a 

 mistake which cost me many a sleepless night of anxiety, yet, even- 

 tually, the cost to me, through the liberal dealing of Mr, Wright, of 

 Oxford Street, came within the limits of even a curate's pocket. 

 And my object in this paper is, to shew that in these days of quick 

 and cheap locomotion, if any person should take a fancy to have a 

 similar bed — a person in the trade for instance — as an advertisement, 

 he might make it answer his purpose, and very possibly would dis- 

 cover that the bulbs may be propagated and prepared as well in 

 England as in Holland. 



From the steeple of Haarlem church, in the middle or latter end 



