108 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



the soil and conditions of the bulb district are 

 entirely different from those of any agricultural 

 part of England. It has been said of the men 

 employed in the bulb fields that they do not care 

 about flowers, merely regarding them as daily work 

 and having no more aesthetic appreciation of them 

 than of turnips. Of course it may be so, but per- 

 sonally I rather doubt it ; although, as has been 

 urged, they certainly do not grow flowers for them- 

 selves. In the bulb district, one never sees bloom- 

 ing cottage gardens as in England, but then land 

 there is so valuable that comparatively few people 

 can afford to have gardens at all ; and those that 

 do are both so poor and so thrifty that they can- 

 not keep them for pleasure only, but must turn 

 their wee patch to the best food-producing account. 

 In the bulb district there is no waste land ; no broad 

 margins " God's gardens," beside the road ; no 

 tangle of leeks and roses beside a tumbling-down 

 cottage door; no grass -grown marigold -studded 

 stretch of brickwork surrounding the common 

 pump. There is no waste, no weeds, no margins, 

 and, alas ! but little beauty about the dwellings of 

 the work-people. Yet none the less it seems they 

 love flowers, often they are to be seen carrying 

 them home, and seldom one passes houses with no 



