2 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the oriental hyacinth, and to the plodding race of commercial florists 

 who now supply us with bulbs the world is indebted for the creation 

 of the hyacinth as a florist's flower. And it is pretty certain that 

 they had it well in hand at the very time our fathers of horticultural 

 literature were in the thick of their work, for Swertius, in his 

 " Morilegium," as cited in Martin's edition of Miller, in the year 

 1620, figured forty varieties, and very scrupulously avoided repre- 

 senting anything so heterodox as a double flower. In Martin's 

 Miller reference is made to Peter Voorhelm, who must have been in 

 the flesh about the year 1680, as a great cultivator and raiser of 

 new varieties, and the first to recognize, with a true florist's percep- 

 tion, the merits of the double flowers. It had been his rule to 

 throw them out of his collection, but he was himself thrown out at 

 last, and while on a sick bed a number of double seedlings took 

 advantage of his absence to enjoy life in their own way, and thus 

 they for a time at least escaped destruction. He had the good for- 

 tune to see one of these, and having kept it and increased it obtained 

 good prices for the offsets, and that fine old stimulant, money, made 

 him thenceforth a raiser of double hyacinths. The first-named 

 variety of this class was called Marij. This appears to have been 

 soon lost. It was followed by one called the King of Great Britain, 

 which was so much in favour that the price of a root was a thousand 

 florins. This price was soon doubled by the demand that arose, and 

 thus at the end of the seventeenth century we have an instance of a 

 hyacinth valued at about two hundred pounds. The tulip mania 

 was at its height in 1634 and two years subsequently. It may be 

 said to have come to an end with the celebrated declaration made at 

 Amsterdam on the 24th of February, 1637, rendering speculative 

 purchases null and void. At all events, the tulip had ceased to in- 

 spire the rapacity of gamblers and the eccentricities of madmen, and 

 had left a lesson such as not even the recent run upon imaginary 

 water stock is likely to confer upon the present generation. The 

 hyacinth, therefore, -which was then as it were forming itself for fame, 

 was happily preserved from all taint of speculative trading, and the 

 prices paid for scarce and beautiful varieties were simple testimonies 

 of the esteem of amateurs for these new and attractive flowers. It 

 is well for floriculture when prices rise to a point encouragiDg to 



