My Garden in Spring 



but here they are at the end of the Tulip beds to linger 

 over and enjoy, and to cut for some small, good old 

 glass vases for the dinner-table, or the writing-table in 

 my own sanctum, and for these purposes nothing lilia- 

 ceous can vie with them. I am sorry to say they are 

 not easy to grow in their best form here ; the Breeders 

 break too easily, and some of the finer Roses or 

 Bybloemen become flushed or coarse, but a few good 

 flowers appear each year among them and make us hope 

 to do better next time. Let us examine one or two care- 

 fully, that in case you need conversion to a true love for 

 them I may have a chance of effecting it. I wonder how 

 deeply you are steeped in Tulip lore ? If you prefer a 

 Rose fr. to a Rose fld. please skip the next page, but if 

 you do not understand those mystic words pray read on. 

 Now I will pick this exquisitely soft-rose coloured one. It 

 is labelled Annie McGregor, Breeder. Notice first the 

 proportions : in outline it is a sphere with the upper one- 

 third removed : see how smoothly rounded the edges of the 

 segments are, how clean and white the base is, and how 

 distinctly it ends and the rose colour commences. This 

 is the form in which this beautiful Tulip first appeared 

 when it flowered in the seed-bed many years ago, and it 

 and one called Mabel are still the best Rose Breeders 

 known. You think Breeder is an ugly name for such a 

 lovely flower ? Perhaps it is, but it has a meaning, and 

 tells us how that at one time these self-coloured Tulips 

 were not valued at all for their pure self-colour, but only 

 because they were the possible parents of striped forms. 

 For all seedling florists' Tulips are self-coloured as seedlings, 

 and remain so for a number of years, seldom less than six 

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