326 
THE GORGEOUS TULIP BED. 
plants may be put in for flowering in early 
spring. No. 1. Von Thol Tulips; No. 2. Cloth 
of Gold, or common Yellow Crocuses ; No. 3. 
Blue Ilepatica ; No. 4. Yellow Crocuses, or 
White Anemone ; No. 5. Scilla verna and 
sibirica, blue ; No. 6. Arabis albida, Avhite ; 
No. 7. Double Pink Hepatica ; No. 8. Winter 
Aconite ; No. 9. Purple Crocuses ; No. 10. 
Snowdrops; No. 11. Primroses; No. 12. White 
Hepatica, or Arabis alpina." 
For the present we shall close, though there 
are some excellent domestic recipes, which we 
may hereafter quote ; and, in the mean time, 
we may safely recommend Mrs. Loudon's 
work to our lady readers as a most useful 
country companion, with au assurance that 
they may safely commit themselves to Mrs. 
Loudon*s keeping. 
THE GORGEOUS TULIP BED. 
How often has it been inquired, why are not 
Tulips cultivated by the rich ? The answers 
might be numerous. It is certain that the 
nobility and gentry visit Tulip-beds, and 
greatly admire them, yet make no advance to- 
wards procuring one. When we find that 
many have expended from 5001. to, perhaps, 
as many thousands, to secure a noble bed, and 
notice, too, that there are persons who, probably, 
have not half as much disposable funds to call 
their own, it seems absurd to say that expense 
would prevent the wealthy from growing 
Tulips ; and yet, again, we find hundreds of 
persons extravagant in one thing that takes 
their fancy, and parsimonious in almost every- 
thing else. The effect of a bed of Tulips, 
when in full bloom, is one of the most striking 
in the whole host of garden attractions. In- 
dividuals, who can hardly say too much against 
the flower, in its isolated state, no sooner obtain 
sight of a bed, than they are lost in astonish- 
ment ; yet the rich, who can best afford to 
have such an addition to their garden, look on 
it as a troublesome, short-lived subject, not 
worth their notice, except to view at other 
people's expense. We are, of course, obliged 
to make exceptions, for there are some who 
may fairly be reckoned among the wealthy, 
and who delight in promoting that branch of 
Floriculture ; persons who not only grow a 
magnificent bed, but who add to it, every 
season, something or other, from different 
collections, to increase the attraction. Still, 
considering the number of garden establish- 
ments conducted, in other respects, in an 
expensive manner, it is extraordinary that 
there are not more Tulip-beds among the rich. 
We have heard many reasons given, but one 
of the most general, and, as we think, most 
correct, is that the gardeners — albeit very good 
men at ordinary subjects — know so little about 
the superior order of flowers, as to discourage 
any attempt to introduce them. It was, how- 
ever, the same with Pansies, Carnations, 
Piccotees, Roses (except the common ones), 
Pinks, and Dahlias, until these gentlemen gar- 
deners saw all the little amateurs growing 
them well, and then their spirit was roused, so 
that, one at a time, nearly all these things are 
rapidly occupying their several spaces in the 
principal establishments, if not at the expense 
of their parsimonious owners, at the cost of the 
gardener himself. But the first cost of a bed 
of Tulips is a serious expense. A hundred 
pounds would go but a small way in procuring 
right good flowers. Yet it is not long since 
we saw an advertisement, in which some one 
offered to sell a finely-arranged bed of fifty 
rows for fifty pounds. This would hurt no- 
body who has an establishment worth the name; 
and if the flowers were well chosen by the 
dealer, they would form a very beautiful 
object; but, of course, a hundred rows would 
be better, and the hundred pounds might be 
exceedingly well laid out. The breaking up 
of one splendid collection ought always to pro- 
duce the formation of another ; for, although 
there are some old and well-supplied Tulip- 
fanciers, who always determine to pick up 
certain objects of interest, the main body of a 
splendid collection, which, forced by circum- 
stances into the market, brings but little, 
ought to tempt some spirited amateur to begin, 
by securing, in effect, all he wants at a fourth 
of what he must pay if he were to order them, 
of dealers in full trade. But where one Tulip- 
grower arises out of the ranks of the rich, 
fifty come out of the ranks of the middling and 
humbler classes, who seem to be embued with 
floral taste, and to participate in the general 
enthusiasm. To these do we owe most of the 
improvements effected in our leading Florists' 
flowers ; and the Spitalfields weaver may 
boast, fairly, that his humble class has done 
more for Floriculture than all the rich people 
in the kingdom, if not in the world. Not that 
we would deny the claims of Botanical collec- 
tors; for they supply us with the ground-work, 
— the material for manufacturing the better 
varieties. The Tulip has been grown for years, 
among a class of men, some of whom have 
not, besides their Tulip-beds, fifty pounds in 
the world, and yet their beds of Tulips have 
cost them some hundreds of pounds. They con- 
sider it a necessary object to their happiness, 
and although much may be said against what, 
to some, may seem an improvident expenditure, 
much worse may be done with money ; and 
if their families are unable to continue the 
enjoyment of it, after the head has been, re- 
moved, they may dispose of it for a much larger 
sum than ever would have been saved, had the 
Tulips not been cultivated. 
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