ON TULIPS 363 



Value in Florins. 



4 barrels of beer 32 



2 barrels of butter . . . .192 

 1000 Ibs. of cheese . . . .120 



A complete bed 100 



A suit of clothes 80 



A silver beaker ..... 60 



Total value . 2500 



Was it some Tulip-loving farmer who made this 

 remarkable bargain ? Country doctors tell us that the 

 farmer of the present day has a way of offering to 

 settle a bill with a sack of grain and a side of bacon ! 



The centre of the mania was Holland, but Mr. 

 Murray quotes Munting as declaring that it originated 

 in France ; where the nobility, evidently moved by the 

 spirit of reckless and selfish extravagance which led, 

 later on, to the Terror, paid sums amounting to hundreds 

 of pounds for a single bulb. Many of the Dutch 

 buyers were mere speculators, and bargains involving 

 large sums of money were made without the Tulips 

 ever leaving the ground. 



Tulips were grown in Holland as early as 1590, and 

 the period of the mania is suggested as 1634-1637. 

 The eagerness of the Dutch to get possession of 

 bulbs was amusingly satirised by Alexandre Dumas 

 in La Tulipe Noire, but his description of the act of 

 an unscrupulous amateur in endeavouring to steal the 

 bulbs of a fellow grower was not imaginary. It was 

 based on fact. Dr. Clusius, whose name is enshrined 

 in the well-known species Clusiana, took Tulips to 

 Leyden when appointed Professor of Botany there, in 

 1593, and as his prices for bulbs were high, his com- 

 patriots prepared a deep-laid scheme and stole them. 



