172 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



wife from Haulton." " June 1655 Lord Lambert, I sent him 

 by Rose a very great mother-root of Agate Hanmer." This 

 was a tulip grown in his own garden at Bettisfield ; its colours 

 were gris de lin, crimson and white. Sir Thomas Hanmer 

 has also left notes on their culture. " Set them in the ground 

 about the full moon in September about four inches asunder 

 and under four inches deep, set the early ones where the sun in 

 the spring may come hot on them. Set the later kinds where 

 the noon sun may not be too fierce on them. Let the earth 

 be mold taken from the fields, or where woodstacks have 

 been, and mix it with a fourth part or more of sand. Make 

 your beds at least half a yard thick of this mold. Tulips live 

 best planted alone, but you may put some anemonies with 

 them on the outside the beds if they be raised high and round. 

 They will come up in December and January, and the early 

 sorts flower in the latter end of March, and beginning of April, 

 the other a fortnight or more after them. Set the mother- 

 roots by themselves, and the young offsets by themselves. 

 The new varieties of tulips come from sowing their seeds, but 

 the seedlings will be five years at least before they bear a 

 flower. Keep old strong roots for seed, of such kinds as have 

 blue cup and purple chives, and are striped with pure white, 

 and carnations or gridelines or murreys. The single colours 

 with blue cups or bottoms, and purple chives will most of them 

 parrach or stipe, and will stand two years unremoved when the 

 roots are old." 



A further catalogue of the contents of the flower garden at 

 Bettisfield in 1660 is chiefly a list of its tulips. Each bed is 

 mentioned, and every row of bulbs taken separately, and the 

 name of each bulb, as many as thirteen ranks, all carefully 

 arranged. But other flowers also found corners, although not 

 allowed beds to themselves. This was another bed at Bettis- 

 field. " In the middle of this bed is one Double Crown 

 Imperial. In the end are six rows of Iris raised from seed by 

 Rea ; also polyanthuses and daffodils. In the four corners 

 of this second bed are four roots of good anemonies." In one 

 there was a preponderance of Narcissus, all described " Belles 

 du Val narcissi, all yellow." ..." Belle Selmane narcissi, 

 right dear ones," and so on. " The border under the South 



