RIVALS OF HOLLAND 81 



from Holland for 530,000 bulbs in the course of a 

 season. These bulbs would be of either first or 

 second size, and it is probable that a good many of 

 them, after being planted in Holland for another 

 season, would find their way back to England as 

 ' Dutch bulbs.' 



But the districts around Spalding and Wisbech are 

 also producing largely for both the home and the 

 Dutch markets. From Spalding, a few years ago, 

 something like 100 tons of bulbs were sent by motor- 

 waggon to Lynn, and thence by steamer to Holland. 

 Even this quantity has been surpassed by the 150 tons 

 consigned from Wisbech to Holland in a single season 

 over the lines of the Midland and Great Northern 

 Joint Railway or 200 tons, if we add the 50 tons that 

 went in the same season from the group of stations 

 between Spalding and Lynn. From such figures as I 

 have been able to obtain I should estimate the total 

 consignments of bulbs from Wisbech alone to all 

 destinations at 300 tons in a season, and this figure, I 

 think, is more likely to be under than over the mark. 



A Lincolnshire grower with whom I discussed the 

 prospects of this increasing and already considerable 

 industry in English-grown bulbs, expressed himself 

 thus: 



If you compare Lincolnshire and Dutch bulbs, our own are 

 incomparably first. The soil in Lincolnshire is better adapted 

 than the soil in Holland to the growing of bulbous plants, espe- 

 cially daffodils and hyacinths. The bulk of the Dutch bulbs are 

 large in size, it is true, but they are soft and unripened. They are 

 what we call 'sappy.' Not being sufficiently ripened, they don't 

 flower so well as the smaller and harder varieties produced in 

 Lincolnshire. In Holland the bulbs are grown mostly in sand and 

 cow manure, and practically in water ; hence the softness of 

 which I spoke. In Lincolnshire we have got the proper soil with- 

 out an excess of water. The bulbs, growing in the autumn, winter, 

 and spring, ripen off here in the summer, when there is moisture 

 sufficient, but not too much. That is where the Lincolnshire bulbs 

 get the advantage over the Dutch. 



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