THE TULIP TRADE 169 



Since that famous year, according to tradition, the road 

 that led to the country beyond the Groot Poort and to 

 the surrounding neighbourhood, where most of the best 

 Haarlemers grew tulips, was called, in remembrance of all 

 the money lost, "The moneyless path.' 1 The rage for 

 tulips became intense, and every one was caught by the 

 craze, and positively some were driven mad by it. Though 

 a few made a great deal of money, the majority of the new 

 bulb growers and buyers lost everything they possessed ! 

 There is a saying in Dutch, " It is not good to come to 

 black seed, for then comes poverty." (Canaries are fond of 

 eating their white seed first, and then have nothing left but 

 the black.) 



Whoever had a plot of ground planted tulips therein. 

 Rich and poor alike — house-painters, cobblers, tailors, weavers ; 

 in a word, nearly everyone either grew or speculated in 

 tulips — some sold all their tools and instruments to buy 

 bulbs. And indeed they might well look forward to great 

 profits, seeing that the bulbs, which in the beginning cost 

 but a few guldens, had now risen to hundreds and thousands. 

 The most coveted and rare kinds it had now become im- 

 possible to buy. For one single bulb 12 acres of land in 

 the Schermer were offered. The Semper Augustus must have 

 been the rarest and most costly of any, the fabulous price of 

 13,000 florins was once paid for it, and soon after three of 

 these bulbs were again sold for 30,000 florins. 



The price of land and the hiring of fields to raise the 

 bulbs in grew very high. A gentleman was offered 50,000 

 florins a year for his field for seven years, in addition to a 

 share in ' the profits. Such was the rage for buying and 

 selling, that most of the inns and taverns in the town were 

 turned into places of Exchange and Mart, where bulbs were 

 bought and sold even before they could be taken out of the 

 ground. A book-keeper was employed, who kept a book of 



22 



