284 



BULBS AND TUBEROUS -BOOTED PLANTS. 



ing at Zurich, after whom it was very appropriately 

 named by Linnaeus. About a century after its first 

 introduction, it became an object of commercial specula- 

 tion, and enormous prices were paid for a single bulb. 

 It is said that as much as $3,000 was offered and refused, 

 in one instance. This mania ruined many of the Dutch 

 fl rists, as well as other speculators who were more 

 excited and reckless than the growers ; but happily it 

 subsided in the early part of the eighteenth century, and 

 the propagation and trade in the Tulip assumed a healthy 

 tone ; the industry rapidly increased until the present 

 time, when, in Holland, more than seven hundred acres 

 are devoted to its culture. 



This class of Tulips has been grown from seed by 

 the millions, and the named varieties are so great that 

 it would be impossible to enumerate them ; one dealer 

 alone boasts of more than eighteen hundred varieties. 

 The ease with which the Tulip can be grown from seed 

 stimulated production to a wonderful extent, the result 

 of which is a vast number of superb varieties. The 

 method of growing the Tulip from seed is, in many 

 respects, unlike that of any other plant. There is a sin- 

 gularity about it exclusively its own. The seedlings, 

 generally, when they first bloom, produce flowers with- 

 out any stripes or markings ; a yellow or white bottom, 

 and all the upright- portion of the petals self-colored, 

 brown, red, purple, scarlet, or rose, and in this condition 

 they remain a number of years without any variegations ; 

 they are then called Breeders, or Mother Tulips. These 

 Breeders are planted every year until they "break" into 

 stripes, and if they prove desirable they are named, if 

 not, they are thrown into the class known as mixtures ; 

 but it takes so many years, sometimes, before the 

 "breaking" occurs, that they are multiplied largely in 

 the breeder state, that is, in self colors, and are dissem- 

 inated m all directions as "selfs"; many of these we 



