92 

 TULIP. 



" For brilliant tints to charm the eye, 

 What plant can with the tulip vie? 

 Yet no delicious scent it yields 

 To cheer the garden, or the fields ; 

 Vainly in gandy colours drest, 

 'Tis rather gazed on than caressed." 



The Tulip is a native of the Levant, and has been in 

 cultivation nearly three centuries. It may be justly entitled 

 the King of Flowers, for the brilliancy and endless com" 

 bination of all colours and shades. The varieties of the 

 Tulip are very numerous, and are divided into different 

 classes. Those cultivated in regular beds by amateurs are 

 rose-coloured, byblocmen and bizarres. There are a great 

 many beautiful varieties, denominated Pdrrot Tulips, which 

 have notched petals, and striped or diversified with green • 

 and also some very dwarfish kinds, both single and double, 

 which are generally cultivated in parlours and greenhouses. 



Mr. T. Hogg, of Paddington, near Lond'm, has pub- 

 lished a work, entitled, " A Treatise on the Cultivation of 

 Florists' Flowers," which comprises the Tulip, Carnation, 

 Auricula, Ranunculus, Polyanthus, Dahlia, German and 

 China Asters, Seedling Heartsease, and New Annuals. In 

 that work, which is dedicated to Queen Adelaide, the author 

 remarks that the cultivation of the Tulip is one of the most 

 fascinating and pleasing pursuits imaginable, and that when 

 the " Tulip mania has fairly got hold of any one, it sticks 

 to him like the skin on his back, and remains with him the 

 rest of his life." He instances a Mr. Davey, of Chelsea, 

 as being in his seventy-fifth year, and in whose breast the 

 fancy for Tulips was so predominant, that in the Autumn of 

 1832, he w T as induced to part with a hundred sovereigns for 

 one single Tulip, named "Miss Fanny Kemble." Perhaps 

 abetter definition of what constitutes the properties of a 

 good Tulip, conld not be given than a description of this 

 " precious gem, or loveliest of all Tulips ;" but, lest my 



