CROCUS VERNUS. , 57 



The yellow Dutch Crocus is the variety most esteemed for profit; although large 

 quantities of the white and blue varieties (of C. vermis), such as David Rizzio, 

 Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, and Walter Scott are grown. The Crocus requires an 

 open situation, and delights in the full blaze of the sun. The modus operandi consists 

 in planting the 'seed', as it is termed, (but which is simply the small corms, which 

 are too small for sale, and range from the size of a pea to that of a very small 

 wood-nut,) in drills, much in the same manner that peas are sown. The drills are 

 made about ten inches apart; and in this soil and climate the very smallest corms 

 will bloom, consequently, as they are usually grown in plots of from a rood to an 

 acre in extent, a field of yellow Dutch Crocus, under a bright sun, when in full 

 bloom is a most gorgeous sight. 



"The third year after planting they are taken up, but large seed will be 'fat' 

 in two years, and are sorted; the large bulbs being sent to market, and the smaller 

 ones replanted as seed. The planting is usually done in November, the ripened 

 bulbs being harvested in June. The increase, during the time the bulbs are growing 

 from seed into saleable bulbs, is almost incredible; amounting probably to 500 per 

 cent in number, and 2,000 per cent in weight.* From fifteen to twenty millions 

 of Crocuses are perhaps annually sold; the price for what are usually denominated 

 in the seedsmen's catalogues '1st. -sized bulbs,' average from 5s. 6d. to 6s. per 

 thousand, whilst second and third sizes realize from half to two-thirds that sum- 

 The trade is usually carried on through the medium of 'dealers', who purchase 

 the bulbs from cottagers and small farmers, and in their turn dispose of them in 

 bulk to the large seedsmen in London and other places. 



"Large quantities are often exported to Holland, as a year's growth there 

 produces a brightness in the skin, which, although imperceptable to the majority of 

 mortals, causes them to acquire a higher value in the market. First-rate samples 

 of Crocus corms will weigh twenty-five to thirty-five pounds per thousand, but extra 

 samples may often be found which bump the scale at forty-two to forty-eight pounds 

 per thousand. It is not too much to say that at least nine-tenths of the Dutch 

 bulbs which are advertised annually as 'Just imported from Holland,' are from 

 Holland in Lincolnshire, and are guiltless of any connection with the Holland on 

 the mainland of the continent of Europe." 



It will be gathered from Mr. Barrell's statistics that the saleable corms of 

 Crocus average from half an ounce to three-quarters of an ounce in weight; and 

 that the price received by the growers scarcely exceeds three halfpence per pound, 



* The increase in number, and probably the increase in weight, named by Mr. Barrell is, I think, 

 an excessive estimate; as my experience in growing Crocuses is that in ordinary garden culture they do 

 not increase in such a ratio. 



