90 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



the trend of fashion prevents them from buying 

 expensive and choice tulips, it also prevents them 

 from caring for the ones they do buy, and so 

 necessitates the frequent replenishing of their 

 stock. They are the grower's chief purchasers, 

 and though he feels a little hurt when they, 

 ignoring his plain directions for cultivation, and 

 getting poor results in consequence, complain of 

 the quality of his bulbs, he never gainsays their 

 taste in varieties. On the contrary, he compiles 

 his catalogue to what he thinks is their fancy, 

 and grows by the acre whatever they and their 

 gardeners ordain to be beautiful. But the real 

 interest and life of bulb-growing did not begin 

 with the enthusiasm of folk of this kind, nor did it 

 die when that died. The true grower still feels a 

 holy joy over a new streak of colour, a new shape 

 of petal ; he still has his collectors over the world 

 looking for novelties ; he still sows and hybridises, 

 and patiently and intelligently works, and feels the 

 connoisseur's satisfaction in success, his own or 

 another's. 



Tulips are grown in Holland to-day much as 

 they were two hundred years ago. The land is 

 very deeply worked in winter, so that the frost 

 may penetrate and kill mice and other vermin ; 



