SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 171 



andsuch like. Thestreight beds are fit for the best Tulips, where 

 account may be kept of them. Ranunculus and Anemonies 

 also require particular beds — the rest may be set all over with 

 the more ordinary sorts of Tulips, Frittilarias, bulbed Iris, and 

 all other kinds of good roots. ... It will be requisite to have 

 in the middle of one side of the flower garden a handsom 

 octangular somer-house roofed everyway and finely painted 

 with Landskips and other conceits furnished with seats about 

 and a table in the middle which serveth not only for delight and 

 entertainment, but for many other necessary purposes as to 

 put the roots of Tulips and other flowers in, as they are taken 

 up upon papers, with the names upon them untill they be 

 dried, that they may be wrapped up and put in boxes. You 

 must yearly make your hot bed for raising of choice annuals, 

 for the raising of new varieties of divers kinds. These gardens 

 will not be maintained and kept well furnished without a 

 Nurcery, as well of stocks for fruits as of flowers and seedlings 

 where many pretty conclusions may be practised." 



Rea's description shows what great attention was paid to the 

 culture of bulbs, especially tulips, in the average small garden. 

 " Tulip fever " was at its height, and although it never reached 

 such a climax in England as it did in Holland, the flowers were 

 justly popular. Fifty years after the first tulip was seen in 

 Augsburg (1559) the flower was well known and largely culti- 

 vated throughout Germany, Holland, and England. About 

 seven distinct varieties were grown, and endless variations pro- 

 pagated from them, and the rage for procuring fresh colours 

 became a passion among gardeners. Rea's son-in-law, 

 Samuel Gilbert, in his Florist's Vade-Mecum, 1 gives a plan of a 

 garden for tulips. The beds are divided into squares, and 

 numbered up to fifty, and each division was intended for a 

 distinct variety of tulip. 



A present of tulips was much valued, or an exchange was 

 effected among friends, and each new variety carefully trea- 

 sured. The following notes occur in a pocket-book of Sir 

 Thomas Hanmer: "Tulips sent to Sir J. Trevor 1654 1 Peruchot 

 1 Admiral Enchuysen 1 of my Angelicas 1 Comisetta 1 Omen 

 1 of my best Dianas, all very good bearing rootes, sent by my 

 1 Second edition, 1683. 



