THE HYACINTH AND THE AMARYLLIS. 



3 



systematic endeavour. To raise new flowers is a tedious and costly 

 proceeding, however delightful it may he, and if the business is not 

 seasoned with a moderate spice of the commercial element it is un- 

 likely to acquire the full prportions of usefulness. As poets and 

 painters and sculptors have been known to hanker after perishable 

 riches, those humbler artists the florists must be permitted to desire 

 the glimpse of a coin occasionally. In the case of the hyacinth we 

 see clearly what happened as a consequence of the profit attending 

 the production of new varieties. In 1 76 8 was published at Amsterdam 

 the Marquis de St. Simon's treatise, Des Jacintes, in which it is 

 declared that the town of Haarlem was then environed with hyacinth 

 farms, and the Dutch florists had named and described about 2,000 

 varieties of the fragrant flower. 



I am not prepared to say how many acres of hyacinths might be 

 found at Haarlem at the present time, but I can advise any lover 

 of flowers who has not yet seen those flower farms to pay them a 

 visit at the time when they are in their full glory, for they then 

 constitute a spectacle not less unique than wonderful, so vast, so 

 various, and so rich are the displays of colour, and so delicious the 

 perfume diffused far beyond the range of the flowery fields. From 

 the middle of April to the middle of May Haarlem is steeped in 

 splendours that no dying dolphins could imitate, and the rich setting 

 of the green meadows all around enhances the brightness, while 

 adding to the completeness of the picture. To state the exact num- 

 ber of varieties now in cultivation is perhaps impossible. It probably 

 does not exeeed one thousand, and of these we might perhaps spare 

 seven hundred or so without any serious loss. In the spring of 1873 

 I flowered at Stoke Newington a collection of 500 varieties, and 

 found fully one-third of the whole number wanting the qualities that 

 constitute average merit. A report of the trial will be found in the 

 Gardenees' Magazine for 1873, and it would be out of place now 

 to bring forward any of the minute details. But two interesting 

 results of the trial may be mentioned. The mid-season flowers 

 proved to be the best, and the blue and white varieties were in most 

 cases superior in quality to the red. Thus it appears that in raising 

 flowers by cross breeding we must expect to lose quality with every 

 gain in departure from the normal type. As regards the distribution 



