330 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ M'.iy 5, 1332. 
roughly heart-shaped, large, pure white, and pioEusely marked with 
rosy crimson spots, reddish brown at the base. The sepals and 
petals are small, slender, and pure white, two of the former being 
situated below the lip and shading it somewhat. They are marked 
with colour at the base. 
This Odontoglossum adds a distinct and pleasing feature to the 
cool Orchid house. 
Veitch’s “Manual of Okchidaceous Plants.” 
Part 8 of this excellent work has just been issued by 
Messrs. Veitch & Sons of Chelsea, and like its predecessors is 
noteworthy for careful description and admirable illustration. The 
greater part of it is devoted to Oncidiums, which are treated with 
great comprehensiveness, but considerable space is given to the 
Miltonias, while the part is completed by a consideration of the 
genera Ada, Brassia, Gomeza, lonopsis, and Ornithocephalus. In 
a future issue fuller reference will be made to it. 
THE SEAMY SIDE OF BULB GROWING. 
The tide of this paper was suggested to me by the fact that 
just as I was starting to visit the bulb farms of Holland on the 
17th inst., a telegram was placed in my hands containing these 
words : “ Useless to come over. The blooms all destroyed by 
frost.” This did not deter me from going ; on the contrary, I was 
all the more anxious to see the damage and count the cost. Con¬ 
sequently, the morning of the 19th (Easter Monday) found me in 
the steam tram err roMie for the fields. Having left the “Garden 
of England ” on Saturday night covered with a mantle of snow, 
I was prepared for the worst, and was surprised to find how gay 
the country looked from the cars. The trip by steam tram from 
Leiden to Haarlem, or vice versa, seems quite the recognised thing 
for the holiday people in Holland to undertake, and I can strongly 
recommend it to anyone who wishes to see the bulb fields in their 
glory. The line passes most of the principal bulb-growing districts, 
and traverses about twenty miles of country in two hours at the 
moderate cost of lOd. first-class. The view obtained is really 
wonderful. The whole land is not under cultivation, and between 
the villages the eye is refreshed by resting upon verdant meadows 
jusc now occupied by cows newly turned out in their spring 
clothing of blankets ; but around the villages and in suitable sites 
we come across patches of brilliant colour covering 20 to 60 acres 
—Hyacinths red, white, and blue, Tulips of brilliant scarlet, and 
Daffodils in their golden glory. The visitor who takes this journey 
at the proper moment will not easily forget the sight, and will go 
away with a glorified vision and a sense of wonder as to where all 
the bulbs can possibly go ; but for us there is other work to be 
done, and we must face the monotony of walking day by day over 
fields, which are filled in the main part with exactly the same kinds 
of bulbs, and which, from a distance at least, are as much alike as 
match beds in a carpet garden. 
Our first care is to see the damage done by the frost, and 
although all looked so bright from the cars, we have not much 
difficulty in seeing how disastrous has been its effects on the 
blooms. Bed after bed has the greater part of the stems frozen, 
and the bloom spikes hanging broken in the middle, the head 
resting upon the soil and foliage. Strange to say the hardy blues 
are most affected, and it is difficult to find a good spike of Marie, 
Mimcsa, Leonidas, or even the late flowering King of the Blues ; 
whilst nearly all the reds and whites have lost their colour (I 
don’t know if it be a “bull” to say a white flower has lost its 
colour, but how shall we otherwise express it ?) to such an extent 
that even their owners find it difficult to recognise them. Fortu¬ 
nately the foliage is in most districts quite uninjured so far, and 
disappointing as it must be to growers to have their show cut off 
prematurely, especially if they a’-e sellers of cut blooms, the well 
being of the bulbs is in no way affected so long as the flowers are 
promptly cut off; but if they lie upon the foliage long, and 
especially if rain comes on at the time, the foliage becomes spotted 
and spoilt. Every grower knows this, but in Holland, as elsewhere, 
there are growers and growers. I shall endeavour to point out the 
difference in their procedure. The careful man has every available 
hand at work on Tuesday after the holiday, and sees that the 
stacks that are frozen are cut below the point of damage, so that 
the stem does not decay into the heart of the bulb. The careless 
grower takes little heed of these matters, and consequently his 
bulbs are second-rate or worthless. Then again, the grower has to 
contend with the “ new disease,” which so far no one in Holland 
seems to have learned the cause of, but which the careful grower 
combats by immediately lifting and destroying every bulb affected ; 
whilst bis careless neighbour lets all grow together until the 
harve>t, and sends the product resulting to auction. 
Perhaps one-half of the bulbs grown in Holland are the 
property of small farmers, who purchase a few and work up a 
stock as a sort of nest-egg for a son or dower fr r a daughter. In 
course of years these come to market, are bought up by the whole¬ 
sale man, and realise a handsome sum, but alas! even here there is a 
seamy side. A few years ago one of these men had a very fine 
stock of a certain Tulip, and in a season when they were greatly in 
demand was offered lOs. a hundred for them on the spot, but no, 
he would not sell before his time. During the ensuing winter 
there was a very excessive rainfall, his land was flooded, and out of 
his thousands of bulbs all that remained to him were a few which 
could have been placed in a soup plate. 
Every season seems to bring some trial to the bulb grower. 
Last year it was the frost, which injured the bulbs to such an 
extent that orders could not in many cases be filled, whilst at the 
same time thirty or forty tons a week were being sold by auction 
in London alone. No wonder that the outcry is loud and bitter 
this season about bulbs flowering badly. This year the Daffodils 
have taken the disease, and acres of the spurius and other types 
will have to be dug in. Apart from all this there is the increasing 
competition from growers who are using cheaper land and less 
manure to produce a low-priced article. The best Hyacinth land 
commands from £600 to £1000 par acre, whilst inferior land, but 
still capable of growing bulbs, is sold at £200 per acre. These 
figures should convince the most obstinate that all Hyacinths are 
not of equal quality, and that regardless of the extra care and 
attention bestowed by some growers upon their bulbs, the land 
used is an important factor ; yet, strange to say, many growers 
complain that the merchants in this and other countries are prone 
to buy the cheap stuff and neglect the good. We know that just 
now England is enthralled by a mania for something cheap— 
i.e., low-priced, and I suppose other countries are in the same 
condition. 
In spite of all this the best growers seem to have HDle to 
complain of. Last year it was with the utmost difficulty that they 
executed all their orders, and the stocks of saleable bulbs left over 
are, in comparison to the numbers grown, ridiculously small. 
Some good old houses seem to be left out of the race. There 
were two sales advertised for Easter—one firm retiring for well- 
earned repose, the other joining the ranks (after selling the best 
stock) of the retailers. That the best growers do not fear a decline in 
the trade is apparent from the fact that large fields are every year 
being added to the ground already under bulbs. In one case 
30 acres, in another 22, were in course of preparation this 
spring, not to mention smaller pieces. It must not be forgotten 
that in addition to the prime cost of the land a very large sum 
(often £100 per acre) is spent in levelling the land by taking off all 
the surface soil, so as to lower the level of the whole field to a certain 
height above the water line ; then the soil is trenched from 3 to 
6 feet deep, taking out the hard bed of peat usually found under 
the surface soil, and which prevents the free penetration of rain 
in wet weather, and the rising by capillary attraction of moisture 
in times of drought. Nor are they suffering their stocks to 
diminish. In the grounds of one grower I saw l-J acre of two- 
year Hyacinths, the stock upon which numbered over 3,000,000 
bulbs, and a similar size piece of one year had a still larger number 
of occupants. Where do they all go to ? is the question which at 
once arises to the visitor. Let us not forget that of the stock seen 
in the fields certainly not more than a fifth part can be saleable in 
any one year, and a still smaller proportion are first-class bulbs. 
Again, Germany, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark give increasing 
orders ; whilst America orders in the characteristic American 
style. I heard of one firm that had placed an order for 140,000 
Double Daffodils (Telamonius plenus), and their orders for Tulips 
are also on a gigantic scale. The English trade is also growing 
fast, in spite of the fact that our close proximity makes us the 
easiest market for the cut flowers and inferior bulbs which are sent 
to auction. 
I think these few rough notes may perhaps be sufficient to 
answer the oft-repeated question, “Why do we not grow our own 
bulbs ? ” Many things we do grow with equal and even greater 
success than our Dutch friends, but without suitable land, and with 
labour which is not content to w'ork from 5 A.M. to 8 P.M. for the 
sum of 2s. 6d. a-day, I think we may rest contented that the 
Dutchman shall continue to supply the rest of the world with 
Hyacinths.— A. H. Pearson. 
DOING UP HARDY FLOWER BORDERS. 
There are, broadly speaking, two methods of doing up the 
borders devoted to hardy plants—the one to dig between the 
plants, at the same time introducing some decayed manure to 
supply nourishment in case of soil exhaustion ; the other to let 
well alone, merely adding some fertilising material to the surface. 
