86 BULBS 



sorts, under proper conditions ; but this should present 

 no great difficulty. These are the lines that have been 

 acted upon with great success around Wisbech, and 

 there is no reason why the same plan could not be 

 followed in Ireland, to the benefit alike of the peasantry 

 and of the large growers themselves. The latter are 

 already finding employment for a greater number of 

 people in their bulb farms, but it would be an excellent 

 thing if, in addition, they could enlist the services of 

 cottagers as assistant-growers. 



Should this be done, then the very successful experi- 

 ments at Rush might be only the beginning of a new, 

 important, and wide-spread industry in Ireland. As still 

 further showing the opportunities opening out to those 

 willing to take advantage of them, I would add the 

 following to the extract I have already given from the 

 article in the Irish Times : 



The soils of Ireland are rich, light, moist and easily worked, and 

 all around the coast there are choice plots and sheltered valleys of 

 alluvium that are especially suitable to the healthy growth and 

 profitable increase of manyrare and valuable bulbous plants. The 

 climate, again, fights for us in the matter. It is moist and genial, 

 equable and mild, and especially so from December until July, 

 when bulbs are rooting and flowering and preparing their crowns 

 and off- sets for another year. 



In Holland, bulb -culture has been an hereditary pursuit or 

 calling for the past three centuries at least, and it is a curious 

 historical coincidence that bulb-growing and printing should both 

 have been started in Holland at about the same time. The art or 

 craft of bulb - culture, with all its technical details, has been a 

 growth, and the bulb-growing son has succeeded the bulb-growing 

 father from generation to generation, and, like viticulture in 

 France, or the pruning of old olive-trees in Lombardy, the 

 mysteries and methods are, so to speak, deep-seated in both heart 

 and brain, or, as one might well say they are, 'in the blood.' Now, 

 as is the case with all new cultures or fresh experiments, it will 

 take some time to get bulb-growing ' into the blood' generally of 

 the average or ordinary Irish farmer or market-gardener ; still in 

 some favourable cases it is now in progress, and even in rare cases 

 is actually being done. We may safely assert that no finer 

 or better bulbs of narcissus, daffodils, tulips, snowdrops, crocus, 



