147 
Fils. [I was received there most kindly by M. Krelage, the 
present head of the house, who showed me his plantations and 
bulb storage house. The latter, a new one, and just completed, 
is gO meters square and said to be the largest in Holland. M. 
Krelage consented to send us a complete set of the plant cata- 
logues of his house in exchange for our BULLETIN. His private 
library is rich in fine old books and he possesses many valuable 
works on bulb culture, especially a complete collection of those 
pertaining to the tulip craze in the seventeenth century. Horti- 
culture is the principal industry of Haarlem. To the south and 
west of the town there are entire fields of hyacinths, tulips, 
crocus, ranunculus, anemones, narcissus, lilies, iris and other 
bulbous plants. At the end of April and beginning of May 
these immense parterres of flowers are an amazing mass of color 
and well worth a long journey to visit. From 1636-1637 
there grew up in Holland a veritable mania for tulip culture. 
Rare species or those in any way remarkable for beauty of color 
or form were sold for exorbitant sums. In an official list of the 
tulips sold at Alkmaar in February, 1637, are found the following 
prices : a bulb of “ Vice roi” 4,200 florins, another 3,000 florins ; 
n “ Amiral Liefkens, 1,015 florins ; a ‘‘ Bellaart,” 1,520 florins ; 
an “Sjery Katelyn”’ 2,610 florins, etc. They were usually sold 
by weight and at the “ exchange’’ where they were dealt with 
as to-day are stocks and bonds, realized even higher prices. 
Mere names were sold for enormous sums and the sellers entered 
into contract to deliver the bulbs at a stated date, whether they 
actually owned them or not. A single ‘Semper Augustus” 
realized the sum of 13,000 florins; 200 grains of the same plant 
4,500 florins; 400 grains of an “ Amiral Lietkenhoek” over 
4,000 florins ; an “‘ Amiral Enkhuiyzen"’ more than 5,000. It is 
stated that at this time a single Dutch town sold ro million florins’ 
worth of tulips and a citizen of Amsterdam is cited as having 
made 6,800 florins, in the space of four months. In 1673 pur- 
chasers having refused to pay certain exorbitant prices and the 
State having decreed that such insensate contracts should be con- 
sideied illegal, the prices fell immediately and a “ Semper Augus- 
tus” could then be purchased for 50 florins. A century later hya- 
