136 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



different experiments which have been made prove con- 

 vincingly that a bulb can bear many amputations safely, 

 and if at any time a sickly bulb has to be cut, one may be 

 pretty certain to get young bulbs from it by taking care 

 to keep the wound made by the cut quite dry. 



There are some bulbs, such as Francois 1st, which may 

 exist years without producing a single young bulb, while 

 others produce at so great a rate that one only wishes they 

 would stop. This shows that young bulbs are plentiful, and 

 may grow in all parts of a bulb, — only that in some they 

 find more resistance than in others, — and the difficulty they 

 find in working their way through the harder sorts causes 

 the slight difference in the forms of the bulbs in the different 

 species. Though all look very much alike to the casual 

 observer, there are nevertheless differences between them. 

 There are some famous growers, such as George Voorhelm, 

 who seldom makes a mistake though he owns 1200 sorts. 

 Each sort has its own regular and distinctive method of 

 reproduction, and peculiarities which mark one species never 

 become accidental in another ; each kind keeps to its own 

 manners and customs. 



Nature being ever obedient to laws, certain knowledge of 

 her ways is the more easy to acquire — the law of species will 

 be the same in a thousand years as it is to-day. Culture 

 has certainly improved species, and finished what Nature 

 could not by herself complete. Some accidents have become 

 thus a second nature, remaining permanent if another 

 accident does not again occur to disturb the existing order. 



Chapter IV. — Seeds 



Although there is a way of propagating hyacinths by seed, 

 like other plants, yet it should be known to all that it is 

 seldom that a double hyacinth produces seed, and such a 



