832 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. PART III. 



sentinels in his garden. This was between 1600 and 1621, when he lived at Rome, in 

 an ill aired and unwholesome habitation ; in which, however, he chose rather to continue 

 than abandon his favorite flowers. (Chalmers's JBiog. Diet.) The taste for tulips in Eng- 

 land was at its greatest height about the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th cen- 

 tury ; about the year 1 730 or 40, it had declined and given way to the taste for botany, 

 and new plants from America and other foreign countries. The tulip, however, is still 

 much cultivated both in Holland and England, near large towns, though in the latter 

 country there are now very few good collections in the private gardens of the higher classes. 

 Like the auricula and some other flowers, it is more the flower of the tradesman and oper- 

 ative manufacturer than of the botanist or man of fortune. 



6243. Varieties. Parkinson, in 1629, enumerates 140 sorts: but " to tell of all the kinds," he says, 

 " which are the pride of delight, they are so many, and as 1 may say almost infinite, doth both pass my 

 ability, and, as I believe, the skill of any other." In Parkinson's time, tulips were divided into prtucoces, 

 or early blowers, and serotinee, or late blowers, with an intermediate division of dubia; mediae, doubtful 

 or middle blowers, which, for the most part, however, belonged to the serotinee. The early blowers have 

 short stems, and the Due Van Tholl is almost the only variety in repute among modern florists. The great 

 variety in the catalogues is produced from the late blowers, which have tall stems and much richer colors ; 

 of these the catalogue of Maddock in 1792 contained the names of 665 sorts. In Mason's catalogue for 

 1820, are six sorts of early tulips ; four of perroquets, or middle blowers ; 22 double sorts, and upwards of 

 600 single late sorts. The Dutch florists class their late-blowing tulips as under : a variety will last an un- 

 known number of years. 



of one plain color on a white or yellow bottom.^ These being cultivated on a dry and rather poor soil be- 

 come broken or variegated, and produce new v'arieties. The time that elapses "before they break varies 

 from one to twenty years or more, and sometimes this change never takes place, so that whoever thinks 

 of raising new varieties of tulips from seed must be possessed of an ample fund of patience and persever- 

 ance. "The early dwarf tulip, known among florists as the Van Tholl, is a distinct species, T. suaveolens. 

 Formerly there were several varieties of early dwarf kinds. 



6245. Criterion of a fine variegated late tulip. " The stem should be strong, elastic, and erect, and 

 about thirty inches above the surface of the bed. The flower should be large, and composed of six petals : 

 these should proceed a little horizontally at first, and then turn upwards, forming almost a perfect cup, 

 with a round bottom, rather widest at the top. The three exterior petals should be rather larger than the 

 three inferior ones, and broader at their base : all the petals should have perfectly entire edges, free from 

 notch or serrature ; the top of each should be broad and well rounded ; the ground-color of the flower, at 

 the bottom of the cup, should be clear white or yellow, and the various rich-colored stripes, which are the 

 principal ornament of a fine tulip should be regular, bold, and distinct, on the margin, and terminate in 

 fine broken points, elegantly feathered or pencilled. The centre of each leaf, or petal, should contain one 

 or more bold blotches, or stripes, intermixed with small portions of the original or breeder color, abruptly 

 broken into many irregular obtuse points. Some florists are of the opinion that the central stripes, or 

 blotches, do not contribute to the beauty and elegance of the tulip, unless confined to a narrow stripe, ex- 

 actly down the centre, and that they should be perfectly free from any remains of the original or breeder 

 color : it is certain that such appear very beautiful and delicate, especially when they have a regular nar- 

 row feathering at the edge ; but the greatest connoisseurs in this flower unanimously agree, that it denotes 

 superior merit, when the tulip abounds with rich coloring, distributed in a distinct and regular manner 

 throughout the flower, except in the bottom of the cup, which, it cannot be disputed, should be a clear, 

 bright white or yellow, free from stain or tinge, in order to constitute a perfect flower." 



6246. Propagation. By seed for new varieties, and by offsets for continuing approved sorts. 



6247. By seed. Select such breeders as have tall strong stems, with large well formed cups, clear in the 

 bottom, and save seed from these in preference to the finest of the variegated or broken sorts, as the seed 

 of such sorts produces nothing but poor weak breeders of no value. " It should remain growing on the 

 stem till the pericarpium becomes of a brownish color, and begins to open; it is then sufficiently ripe, and 

 should be cut off, with six or eight inches of the stem, and treated afterwards, in all respects, agreeable to 

 the directions given for the management of hyacinth-seed. Some of the seedlings will bloom by the fourth 

 or fifth, and most, if not all, by the seventh year." 



6248. By offsets. These should be planted soon after they are separated from the parent bulb, in beds of 

 fresh sandy loam, with a little rotten cow-dung placed from seven to twelve inches below the surface, in a 

 dry airy situation, from two to four inches deep, according to the size of the roots. The beds should be 

 raised six or eight inches above the alleys, formed rather convex on the surface, and may be provided 

 with hoops and mats, to be used to guard them, as occasion may require, from heavy rains and severe frosts. 



6249. Choice of full-grown bulbs. Select such as have not lost the brown skin, are not mouldy or soft at 

 the root end, and are full, solid, and rather pointed at the other. Just before planting, strip off the brown 

 skin so as to leave the root perfectly bare and white, performing the operation with great care, to avoid 

 bruising or wounding the root, especially at the lower end, where the fibres are formed, which is, at the 

 season of planting, extremely tender. 



6250. Soil and situation. " The situation for the best bed should be in an open airy part of the garden ; * 

 when that is fixed upon, the ground should be marked out, agreeable to its intended dimensions, and the 

 soil taken out twenty inches deep ; the bottom is then to be filled up with sound fresh earth, ten inches thick, 

 upon which is to be placed a stratum of two-year-old rotten cow-dung, and earth of the above description, 

 about one hatf of each, well mixed together, twelve inches thick ; and again, upon this is to be placed an- 

 other stratum of the same kind of earth as that of the bottom ; this is only to be two inches thick at the 

 sides, and three inches at the middle, which will give it a small degree of convexity ; this is to be per- 

 formed about the 20th of October, i. e. a week or two before planting, to give the bed time to settle ; at 

 the expiration of two weeks, the earth will have subsided, so as to be about two inches higher than the cir- 

 cumjacent paths ; but if heavy rains intervene between this preparation of the bed, and the time of plant- 

 ing, it will be pro])er to keep them off, in order to preserve the temperature of the earth, as it would be 

 rendered too compact and adhesive, by a redundancy of moisture for the fibres to pass freely through it, 

 which ought to be avoided." Hogg recommends a fresh, rich, loamy soil, of rather a sandy nature, which 

 should be dug twelve months at least before it is used, and a small portion of well rooted dung must be 

 added. He says, an intelligent old tulip-grower assured him, that the best compost he had ever hit on 

 " was three fourths rich yellow loam ; one fourth leaf-mould ; one sixth two-year-old horse-dung ; and 



