Notes and Gleanings. 43 



Dutch Bulbs. — The Dutch have long been celebrated for their cultivation 

 of bulbous roots, especially tulips and hyacinths ; and from March till June the 

 district around Haarlem is carpeted with a succession of beautiful flowers, begin- 

 ning with crocuses, and ending with ranunculi. The sandy soil of the district, 

 which is derived from the dunes, is highly favorable to bulb- culture : indeed, 

 some of the flowers grow on the sand-hill ; and hundreds of acres of valuable land 

 are, in consequence, devoted to flower-farming. In the proper season, as one 

 drives along the roads in the neighborhood of Haarlem, he is surrounded on all 

 sides by plantations of hyacinths and tulips in full bloom, forming a mass of 

 color exceedingly varied and rich, while the scent exhaled is most delicious. 

 Every house and villa has its bulb-garden ; and for long distances the eye can 

 feast on glorious masses of richly-hued flowers. In one of the bloeinestries, there 

 is a bed of tulips two hundred yards in length, which, in the spring-time, is re- 

 splendent with gorgeous color ; and, in order to the better setting of them olT, they 

 are framed in a border of crown imperial lilies, and bridged over for effect every 

 here and there with a wooden arch. It is a great pity that such a lovely flower 

 as the tulip is scentless : Nature must have exhausted herself in the coloring. 

 The hyacinth, however, exhales a delicate perfume, especially about midnight ; 

 and, at Haarlem, great beds of these favorite flowers, covered over with roofs of 

 canvas to protect them from extreme heat or rain, may be seen so arranged as 

 to present the most vivid contrasts, or exhibit the finest harmonies of color. — 

 Once a Week. 



The Cylinder Vinery. — If I mistake not, some hints respecting a struc- 

 ture under the above name have appeared in your columns : no detailed descrip- 

 tion of it has, however, been given. The same ingenious gentleman who in- 

 vented the ground-vinery has, by a happy thought, projected this economical and 

 admirable structure for the cultivation of grapes ; and to prevent his invention 

 being pirated and patented by some little extra work being added to it. of no 

 utility except to form the groundwork of an application for a patent, he has 

 made his cylinder-vinery a patented invention. 



A month or two since, an hexagonal cylinder-vinery was erected in the nurse- 

 ries at Sawbridgeworth, under the sanction of the inventor, by Mr. T. F. Rivers ; 

 and so simple is the structure, that it was put up and completed by twelve o'clock 

 of the day it was commenced. This structure is, indeed, so simple as to be 

 difficult to describe ; but, as was said the other day by an amateur from a dis- 

 tance, it is worth a day's journey to see. The hexagonal form is that which I 

 shall attempt to describe : but these vineries may be built with eight or ten angles, 

 or even more, if a greater number of vines is wished for ; the number of angles 

 determining the number of vines that can be planted in a vinery with advantage, 

 — the hexagonal cylinder allowing space for five, the octagonal for seven, and 

 so on. 



The hexagonal vinery I have alluded to is built with six slight posts of the 



best fir-timber, three and a half inches by one and a half, standing nine feet out 



. of the ground : ten feet is the height suggested by the inventor. These posts 



are firmly fixed in the ground by ramming, and attached to each other by strong 



