118 REPORT OF THE SCOTTISH COMMISSION 



3. Bulb-Growing 



It is not very difficult to grow early potatoes, nor is it very difficult 

 to grow the hardier kinds of fruit. The man of intelligence of course 

 has the advantage, but the stupid man may do fairly well. It is 

 more difficult to grow good bulbs. The production and the market- 

 ing require more than ordinary intelligence. Given that, there is 

 more profit in bulbs than in potatoes or fruit. But a man of ordinary 

 intelligence may very well grow the cheaper class of bulbs, and make 

 money. If the right sort of Irishman could be got and put on the 

 right sort of soil in Ireland, he would very soon in the bulb trade 

 make his holding, though less than thirty acres, an economic holding. 



Holland has hitherto been the land of bulbs. It has had pre- 

 eminence in bulb-farming for many years. It has supplied the world 

 with bulbs. But the days of its monopoly are gone. England is 

 producing bulbs, both for the bulb and the bloom, and consigning 

 them to Holland itself by the ton. Ireland has also entered the 

 trade. It was reserved for Mr Robertson of the firm of Hogg & 

 Robertson, Seedsmen, Dublin, to make a beginning. We have said 

 that fourteen miles north from Dublin, there is a village by the sea 

 called Rush. It lies in a desert of sand. It was on this dreary 

 waste that Mr Robertson, about twelve years ago, decided to 

 start bulb-growing. Apart from extending his own business he 

 wanted to assist in the development of mJnor industries in 

 Ireland. At the outset he bought only a small plot that could 

 best be described in yards rather than in poles or acres. To-day 

 his firm holds forty acres, cut up in little fields, sheltered 

 from fierce winds by turf dykes and privet hedges and hurdles 

 with the branches of trees twisted in them. They have even some- 

 times had to lay straw above the planted bulbs, pressed into the 

 ground with the flat of a spade to keep the sand from leaving them. 

 They manure at the rate of 100 tons per acre without creating a very 

 marked impression. But the sandy soil is suitable. It is the same 

 soil in which bulbs grow in Holland. Bulbs must have plenty of 

 moisture. The rainfall at Rush is less than the rainfall anywhere 

 else in Ireland. But still there is plenty of moisture. Just as the 

 canals in Holland give moisture to the land the sea supplies the 

 moisture at Rush. The climate is better than the climate of Holland. 

 Moreover, Holland has grown bulbs on the same ground since the 

 sixteenth century. Rush is just beginning and the soil in its virgin 

 state, with the addition of cow manure, may be better suited to the 

 production of bulbs than soil that has grown little else for genera- 

 tions. At any rate, Messrs Hogg & Robertson have succeeded 

 beyond their expectations. They have a great trade. They send 

 bulbs to Scotland, England, the Continent, the Colonies. The 

 Department of Agriculture might do worse than enlist the services 

 of these shrewd Scotchmen in the development of the bulb trade in 

 suitable districts in Ireland. 



The other bulb farm which we had the pleasure of visiting was at 

 Lissadel, the residence of Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth, some ten miles 

 from Sligo. Sir Josslyn is an Irishman interested in the welfare 



