THE TRADE IN BULBS. 23 



the little vireos were hatched, we found that another kind 

 of vagabond, who evidently did not own even a pocket- 

 knife, had torn the limb from the tree, in order to steal the 

 nest and eggs. The vireos had gone away, and perhaps, 

 when they fly southward this fall, they will feel that their 

 summer's work has been lost, and that it would have been 

 just as well if thej' had not tried at all. That is the way 

 people are apt to feel when things go wrong with them. 



From a bird's view-point, that pretty- nest, built in the 

 much-frequented wood, invaded bj^ a vile cow-bird, and 

 plundered by some brute of a man or boy, was a sad fail- 

 ure ; but we know that it was a grand success in a way 

 which the disappointed vireos could not possibly under- 

 stand. For the picture of the house they built will go in 

 Nature Study all over their own country, and to Eu- 

 rope, and even to the far-away Philippines ; and it will be 

 bound in books, to stand on the shelves of many public 

 libraries, where, years from now, boys and girls will still 

 sometimes read the story of the nest that failed. 



The Trade in Bulbs. 



The man with the little garden walks round the public park and 

 sees crocuses and daffodils, hyacinths and tulips by the thousand. 

 He understands they are imported direct from Holland by very 

 large users of the bulbs. It is an astounding trade as so measured 

 and taken as an example of what others do in the same line, as 

 tradesmen say. The Japanese trade comes next in impor- 

 tance to the Dutch. During last season eighty tons of lily roots 

 were sold, and this amounts in numbers to about 3,000,000. But 

 this is nothing to the Dutch trade, if we take the same basis of 

 weight and numbers as the Japanese instance. The average .sale is 

 sixty tons per week, which is in numbers about 2,500,000, The 

 season lasts about four months — sixteen weeks — so that in weight 

 960 tons are sold ; and this amounts in numbers to the almost in- 

 credible sum of 40,000,000. — Saturday Review. 



