November 1, 1894. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
401 
more vigorously than rectified flowers, they also increase more 
rapidly, and it may be that they owe their name to this latter 
peculiarity, and to a much more annoying one of the seedling bulb 
in its earlier years before it is large enough to flower, forming a 
lot of little bulbs instead of confining itself to getting big enough 
to flower in the smallest possible time. The Dutch call breeders, 
pleasantly enough, “ Mother Tulips.” 
A breeder may remain in the self or breeder state for an 
unlimited time. For very many years it may grow, iticrease, and 
multiply, and one may have a stock of many flowering roots, but 
some blooming season it will be seen that one or more of them 
have entirely changed their appearance—from being seifs they 
have become variegated or rectified. How or why the change has 
occurred no one knows, but there they stand with form and other 
properties unaltered, but yet marvellously changed in the arrange¬ 
ment of the colours on the petals. The colour of the base, whether 
it be white or yellow, is no longer confined, but has asserted itself 
all over the petals, and the old self colour has arranged itself in 
feathery patterns upon it in wondrously beautiful fashion. The 
change of “ breaking ” takes place quite suddenly ; there is nothing 
to tell one in the bloom of the year before that it is going to occur, 
although it is easy to tell when a breeder has broken before it 
blooms, for curiously enough the foliage, which is a solid shade of 
green so long as the Tulip remains a breeder, becomes more or less 
mottled when the bulb has decided to produce a rectified Tulip. 
It has always been desired by Tulip men to break their breeders, 
and many nostrums have been tried in the past. I find that I 
break quite enough by growing some of my bulbs away from home 
in another soil and purer air ; but for those who would like to try 
an old receipt I insert the following, extracted from an old work 
called “ The Curious and Profitable Gardener,” by John Cowell. 
“ Take the plaster of old walls, wherein is a great deal of lime, and 
powder it very fine ; mix this with drift sand or such sand as is sharp, 
and found on the sea shore ; to this add of the water that runs from a 
dung-hill ; mix these as well as possible and put over the surface of the 
bed, a little before you plant your breeding or plain Tulips, and’twill 
make them break into fine stripes to a wonder, as is related to me by a 
gentleman of great honour, who has proved it as he observes, for five or 
six years.” 
Old John Cowell evidently gives this in all good faith, but he 
owns that he relies on the “ gentleman of great honour ; ” still 
what more could anybody want ? I have never tried the plan, 
but can see no objection, so far as the health of the bulb is con¬ 
cerned, to making the experiment. 
Tulips are said to be rectified when they have broken in such a 
way as to be classed into one or other of the two classes into which 
rectified flowers are divided. These classes are called feathered 
Tulips and flamed Tulips. 
This is the last subdivision I shall have to mention, and at 
the risk of being thought too laboured in my explanations I give 
below the various subdivisions in a simple form. 
Florists’ Tulips 
Eoses 
< Bybloemens 
Bizarres 
L 
( Breeders 
(Rectified 
f Breeders 
(Rectified 
( Breeders 
(Rectified 
Feathered 
Flamed 
Feathered 
Flamed 
(Feathered 
\ Flamed 
A feathered Tulip is one in which the marking is limited 
exclusively to the edges of the petals. The colour of it varies in 
intensity or brilliancy, as well as in the space it occupies in different 
varieties. In some it is merely a narrow streak, confined to the 
very margin ; in others it covers a considerable breadth, and 
between these limits we have every shade of difference. It also 
varies as to the manner in which (to use a florist’s phrase) it is laid 
on. In some the feathering, as it is called, is laid on densely, 
terminating abruptly on the lower edge, and forming what is called 
a plated feather ; in others it terminates in slender streaks, arising 
from some of the rows of cells in the tissue of the petal containing 
colouring matter much lower down than the intervening ones, 
thereby producing what is known as a pencilled feather. The 
pencilled feather is far more beautiful than the plated one, and 
more esteemed, although such is the scarcity of good feathered 
flowers that we yet grow many plated flowers. A perfect feathered 
flower must have the ground colour, whether white or yellow, 
completely pure and bright, and entirely free from spot or mark of 
any kind, except the feathering round the edges of the petals. 
This feathering should be laid on evenly and without breaks 
throughout its whole extent, terminating gradually and imper¬ 
ceptibly on the lateral margins of every petal alike, at a point not 
nearer to the stem than the commencement of the base, which 
should, as previously explained, cover about one-fourth of the 
petal at its lower end. The breadth of the feather at its widest 
part should not exceed one-fourth of the length of the petal, for if 
it do the large amount of surface which then becomes covered with 
colour gives the flower an overweighted appearance. It may, 
however, be very much narrower with advantage ; in fact, it 
matters little how small an amount of colour is used in the com¬ 
position of the feather provided it is continuous all round the 
petals. Breaks in the feather—that is, portions of the edges of 
the petals which are destitute of colouring matter—are called ships, 
and skips constitute a fault that feathered flowers are very prone to. 
A flamed Tulip has, in addition to the feathering above described, 
a coloured beam or pillar occupying the centre of each petal. It 
varies much in its shape—in some instances it consists of a narrow 
stripe of colour extending from the base up the middle of the 
petal nearly to the tip, at other times the beam assumes a pyramidal 
shape, occupying almost the entire width of the petal at the base, 
and gradually tapering up till it is lost in the feather at the top. 
Between these two styles of flaming there is every kind of form 
and size. The most perfect specimen is that in which the beam is 
of a pyramidal form and of moderate breadth, being free from 
streaks of ground colour in its centre, but gradually throwing off 
narrow streaks like branches at its sides and the top, to commingle 
with the pencillings of the feather without rising to any part of 
the margin of the petals in a solid mass of colour. The more of 
the narrow branching streaks there are and the better, provided 
that the ground colour is left visible between them in such a 
proportion that there is on the entire surface of the petal about 
equal amounts of ground colour and marking. If the marking is 
in much greater proportion the flower has a dull, overburdened 
look, and is called heavy; whilst if the ground colour is in too 
great a proportion the petals have a bare empty appearance, and 
the flower is termed light. It must not be supposed that either 
lightly or heavily flamed flowers are rejected ; on the contrary they 
are both grown and esteemed. We do not, and cannot conform 
rigidly to our standards, whether of shape or marking ; they exist 
in our minds as diagrams with which we mentally compare our 
flowers, and we esteem most those varieties which come nearest to 
them. At the same time we grow, and are pleased with, many 
varieties which offend in one respect and charm in another. 
I have before stated that the beauty of the Tulip lies as much 
in the inside as on the outside of the flower, and it is important 
that both ground colour and marking should be equally bright and 
intense on the outside as the inside of the petal. Many varieties 
fail in this respect; the outside, particularly among bizarres, being 
generally rather duller in marking and ground than the inside. 
Much improvement is, however, noticeable amongst some of the 
newer varieties in this respect. 
I have availed myself largely in the foregoing description of 
the properties of the Tulip of Dr. Hardy’s admirable articles 
on the subject, published in the “Midland Florist’’for 1847 and 
(To be continued.) 
RIPENED WOOD. 
Though much pressed for time just now, I cannot allow 
“ J. A.’s” important contribution (page 381) to this controversy 
to pass without a word of thanks. It is the most valuable article 
which has yet appeared, and treats the scientific aspect of the 
question, as at present understood, in a masterly manner. There 
are one or two points upon which I do not quite agree with the 
writer, but these mere divergences of opinion would doubtless 
disappear upon further investigation and discussion. 
I cannot unfortunately be equally complimentary respecting 
“Azote’s” latest literary effort (page 380), the scientific line 
hardly suiting his flowery and verbose style of writing. Con¬ 
sequently my stock of knowledge has not been appreciably 
increased by his attempts in that direction. Curiously enough, at 
the outset he shows himself unable, or pretends to be so, to appre¬ 
hend the essence of the joke against him on “ solar influence,” and 
this, too, at a time when he is posing as a scientist. Let me tell 
him, then, that “ solar influence ” is a term generally employed by 
astronomers and other scientific men to express the attractive 
force exerted by the sun, in virtue of his enormous mass upon the 
whole solar system, and even far beyond into the depths of space. 
I presume even “ Azoto ” would hardly venture to affirm that it 
was this force which caused the growth of terrestrial vegetation. 
No, the expression he was hankering after in his thirst for long 
words was “solar radiation.” For my part I prefer the one he 
despises—“sunshine,” being plain Anglo-Saxon, understanded of 
the people, clearly expressing one idea, and one only. 
Having put “Azoto” right in this little matter once and. for 
