210 
THE TULTP\ 
GLENNY ON THE TULIP, 
ITS CULTURE AND PROPERTIES. 
According to our notions, there is not a more 
striking object in a well-kept garden than a 
choice collection of tulips, properly planted 
and protected. This flower, although by no 
means striking in the borders, and telling 
merely as a gaudy and hardy addition to the 
flowers of spring, is, when in collection, pro- 
perly arranged, and growing under canvass, 
a very noble and imposing addition to any 
garden establishment. That the tulip is so 
hardy as to grow in any soil and situation, and 
through any kind of weather, is not to be 
denied ; but the difference between the same 
variety exposed to hardships, and properly cul- 
tivated, is so great as to repay the most care- 
ful management, and will reward the cultivator 
for all the care he can bestow. The Dutch, 
for many years, surpassed us in the growth of 
this our favourite ornament of the parterre. 
The length of time which it takes to produce 
a blooming tulip from seed, even under the 
most favourable circumstances, for many years 
deterred the English growers from taking any 
pains to produce new varieties ; and our 
neighbours having more industry, and, more- 
over, a soil and situation that were naturally 
adapted for their culture, took and kept the 
lead for many years. 
We are not going, here, to give a long 
history of the tulip mania, and the enormous 
prices which particular varieties have been 
known to bring (and which was regardless 
altogether of the quality of the flower), because 
it does not afford the least instruction. It is 
sufficient to say, that tulips were bought and 
sold, like shares and stock, " per time ;" and 
if a man had engaged to deliver, at the proper 
period, tulips which he found, to his cost 
perhaps, had all been bought up, he was 
obliged to offer enough to tempt somebody to 
part from them, or to make his buyer make up 
the account. The value of the tulip had, 
therefore, nothing to do with the price which 
had to be paid to make up the amount. Thus 
a man possesses himself of all he can buy of 
some flower not at all plentiful, and, having 
done this, he offers publicly to buy more ; 
others, who want to gamble, and calculate that 
they can get plenty, agree to sell and deliver 
a certain number at the taking up. This is 
carried on till the buyer has got people engaged 
to deliver more than there are in existence, 
and this being the case, the price must go up 
until the buyer is satisfied. If he knows they 
are not to be got, he may become arbiter of 
the price at which he will settle, and they are 
