HYACINTH OR IRIS? 51 



late days of the French monarchy ; they are figured 

 in the prim paintings of our great-grandmothers and 

 on the cups of Dresden and Lowestoft china ; they 

 even occur on the porcelain fragments that are 

 discovered on the far-off African coast, though 

 probably there they are of Dutch or Chino-Dutch 

 origin. But a hyacinth, a big, full hyacinth, is 

 essentially and entirely Dutch ; its very type and 

 standard of beauty is almost national, and nowhere 

 else in the world can the bulb be produced in per- 

 fection. In Ghent and near Berlin, in the sandy 

 Spree plain, it has been tried, but never with real 

 success; the production of the true, fine, and perfect 

 hyacinth bulb belongs to the Dutch growers alone. 

 The bulb, even now after all these years of 

 cultivation, is no trifle to produce, no untended 

 child of a summer's growth. It takes four years, 

 and care and understanding, to raise a market- 

 able hyacinth bulb ; four years, or in some very 

 propitious soils and circumstances, possibly three. 

 There are two methods open to the grower who is 

 producing hyacinths : either he slightly hollows the 

 base of the bulb from which he wants increase, or 

 else he cross-cuts it in several directions with cuts 

 nearly half an inch deep. If he follows the latter 

 course, he must bury the bulb after cutting for a 



