28 



The Florists^ Review 



Fmkdaby 1, 1017. 



BULB GROWING IN HOLLAND. 



[This is the second Installment of a paper 

 read at a recent meeting of the Cleveland Flo- 

 rists' Club, in Cleveland, O., by John Van Leeu- 

 wen, of Sassenheim, Holland. In describing tlie 

 methods of bulb culture used in Holland, Mr. 

 Van Leeuwen confined his remarlcs to three 

 groups of plants, hyacinths, tulips and narcissi. 

 The first section of liis paper had reference to 

 hyacinths and was publlslied in The Review of 

 January 25. The present section treats of tr- 

 lips. The remainder of the paper, with narcissi 

 as the subject, will appear in a later issue of 

 The Review.] 



The different species of tulips are 

 found wild along the northern shores of 

 the Mediterranean, in Armenia, the 

 Levant, the Caucasus district, Persia, 

 and sporadically across north and cen- 

 tral Asia as far as Japan. 



The old Due van Thol varieties are 

 derived from Tulipa suaveolens, a na- 

 tive of the Caspian region, while, the 

 other kinds are mostly seedlings of 

 Tulipa Gesneriana, which was intro- 

 duced from the Levant in 1577 and two 

 years later was brought from Constan- 

 tinople to Augsburg by Conrad Gesner. 



The name "tulip" was probably tak- 

 en from the Turkish word "tulbend," 

 a turban, with reference to the shape 

 of the flower. 



An Ancient Craze for Tulips. 



It was not long before tulips became 

 exceedingly popular — so much so that 

 in the early part of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury a regular craze broke out in Hol- 

 land. In Haarlem one can still find a 

 stone on which is inscribed simply the 

 date, 1637. This stone was kept as a 

 remembrance of the famous tulip trade 

 of the year 1637, "when, one fool 

 hatched from another, the people were 

 rich without substance and wise with- 

 out knowledge." 



Wild tales are abundant about what 

 was paid for one tulip. For a single 

 bulb twelve acres of land in the 

 Schermer polder were offered. One va- 

 riety. Semper Augustus, must have been 

 the rarest and most costly of all, as the 

 fabulous price of $5,500 is said to have 

 been once paid for it, and soon after- 

 ward three of these bulbs were again 

 sold for $12,000. 



The price of land and the rent of 

 fields in which to grow the bulbs be- 

 came extremely high. One gentleman 

 was offered $20,000 a year for his field 

 for seven years and in addition a share 

 of the profits. 



Speculation and Extravagance. 



The rage developed to such a stage 

 that nearly every inn and tavern 

 around Haarlem was turned into a bulb 

 exchange, where bulbs were bought and 

 sold long before they were taken from 

 the ground. In each of these places a 

 bookkeeper was employed, who kept a 

 record of every transaction and of the 

 profits made, which in most cases 

 seemed extraordinarily high. 



Many men, unused to such wealth, be- 



came exceedingly extravagant, spending 

 money lavishly and beyond their in- 

 comes, buying carriages and horses and 

 living at such a rate as only possessors 

 of untold wealth could afford. 



What many a wise man had foreseen, 

 at last happened. Everyone having be- 

 come a bulb grower, so many tulips 

 were crowded into the market that 

 prices suddenly dropped. A great many 

 buyers refused to take the bulbs at the 

 price agreed upon, and a good many 

 disputes and quarrels .arose. Finally 

 the States General of Holland issued a 

 decree that, beginning April 27, 1636, 



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tulip sellers had the right to force buy- 

 ers to accept the bulbs at the prices 

 agreed upon. The decree stopped the 

 speculation to such an extent that a 

 Semper Augustus, for instance, for 

 which previously several thousand dol- 

 lars had been paid, now brought only 

 $20. Many people were ruined. 



Modem Tulip Fields. 

 Even though the craze ruined num- 



bers of people, many kept on growing 

 them, and today one can see miles and 

 miles of tulips in bloom when traveling 

 through our district in April and May. 



Tulips do not absolutely require the 

 same soil which we use for hyacinths. 

 We grow tulips in clay and even in peat 

 soil. It must be said, though, that tu- 

 lips grown in sand will produce the 

 best results in general. 



When grown in sand the tulips are 

 planted in the same place from which 

 the hyacinths were taken earlier in the 

 season. The ground is manured with 

 about two bushels of cow manure to 

 the square rod. Of course a good deal 

 of the manure which was used for the 

 hyacinths is still in the soil. The bulbs- 

 are planted in the same way as the hya- 

 cinths. The beds are covered with a 

 light layer of new, long reeds. This i» 

 not done to protect them from frost, as 

 tulips do not suffer from frost, but to 

 shield them from the winds in the 

 spring. 



Harvesting and Marketing. 



When the bulbs are ripe they are dug 

 and taken to the bulb houses, where 

 they are spread out thinly on the 

 shelves. They get plenty of air, so as 

 to dry them quickly, while care is taken 

 that the sun does not shine on them, 

 because then the skin bursts. Tulips 

 propagate themselves, and the old 

 mother bulb splits into two to five 

 smaller bulbs, leaving only a lot of old, 

 dry skin. 



■ As soon as the bulbs are dry we hire 

 a lot of women and girls to clean them. 

 When this is done the bulbs are run 

 through a sorting machine, which sorts 

 them in about ten different sizes. The 

 selling size is then put on a table and 

 picked over by hand. The bulbs are, 

 after that, counted into bags of 250 and 

 500, according to the variety. The 

 bags are put on shelves and left there 

 until we pack them in cases to be 

 shipped abroad. 



Present Popularity of Tulips. 



There is no disease in tulips, and of 

 all the bulbs we grow they are probably 

 the easiest of culture. They are much 

 more popular than hyacinths, probably 

 on account of the fact that they have 

 such a long blooming season and can 

 therefore be put to so many more uses. 



Among the great acquisitions are the 

 Darwins, of which no one knows the 

 origin, and lately the breeders have 

 come to the front again. They are 

 nothing new. They are the unbroken 

 forms of the old florists' tulip, and the 

 old Dutch gardeners discarded them be- 

 cause a tulip had no value for them 

 unless the flower was either striped or 

 feathered. Here and there in old, for- 

 gotten corners, breeders are found and 

 greedily taken up by the present grow- 

 ers. They are truly magnificent flowers. 



