488 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 29, 1894. 
THE FLORISTS’ TULIP. 
[By James W. Bentley, Hon. Secretary to the Royal National Talip Society.] 
The Properties Further Considered. 
(^Continued from i)age 405.) 
In justice to the Dutch growers of 130 years ago it must be 
admitted that they had formulated a standard of the properties of 
the Tulip, which, although wanting in definition, shows that they 
were quite aware of the necessity for the improvement of the 
flower, and of the lines upon which that improvement must pro¬ 
ceed. An old work, entitled “ The Dutch Florist,” by Nicholas 
Van Kampen & Son of Haarlem, of which a second edition was 
published in London in 1764, contains the following statement of 
the properties :— 
1, That it (the Tulip) should have a tall stem rising to the height of 
3 or 4 feet, because this is agreeable to the nature of the flower. 
2, That the cup be large, well proportioned, and composed of six 
leaves, which should not be too long, because that would spoil their 
symmetry. This frequently occurs in old Tulip!, and also in some 
modern ones. It is also a fault, though not so disagreeable when the 
cup is of the shape of an egg, because then the leaves fold over each 
other and close up the mouth of the flower ; yet there are many fine 
Tulips that labour under this defect. The leaves ought to be of a round 
shape, broad and thick, for when they are thin they crumple, and the 
colours are apt to be blended. 
3, The colours ought to be lively and bright. Those that are most 
valued and in the greatest request are the black, golden yellow, purple 
violet, rose and vermilion colours. Tulips whose flowers are finely 
striped and variegated with three colours, distinct and unmixed, with 
very strong and regular streaks without a tinge of the breeder colour, 
are the finest bizarres, and may be called perfect Tulips, 
The great omission is purity, but independently of this quality, 
we can, I think, see that many of the beauties we prize—the short, 
round cup of stout petals, the clear and distinct marking, the 
decided brilliant colours—were just as much thought of by these 
old Dutch masters ; and even in the matter of purity there is 
evidence that they prized it, although probably at that time it 
could not be insisted upon. The following extracts from 
“A Descriptive List of Hyacinths and Tulips,” published in 1767, 
bear on this point. 
Rose Quarto, rectified.—A perfect and most valuable flower, pure 
white, well broken, with scarlet and crimson. This rectified sort is a 
great deal finer and 7no7'e clean than the ordinary one. 
Triomphe de Lisle.—Perfect shape, and the highest of all those with 
a white bottom, well broken with black ; very fine. 
Brulante Bclatante.— White as snoio, very cleanly broken with pink 
and rose colour, well shaped ; exceedingly fine and scarce. 
These extracts show that the old Dutch florists held much the 
same views as we now do, the chief difference being that our 
modern standard has been amplified and more exactly laid down. 
Their descendants, however, seem not only to have made no 
advances on the ideas of their forefathers, but to have actually 
forgotten them. The quotations from Van Kampen’s “ Dutch 
Florist" are taken from a paper on “ Judging Florists’Flowers” 
contributed by Mr. John Slater, of Manchester, to the “Gardeners’ 
Record ” of 1854. 
I may, in conclusion, mention three other styles of Tulips, 
formerly held in some estimation, but now scarcely ever seen. 
Two of these are called tricolors and seifs, and the other was a 
flamed Tulip, destitute of any feathering. Tricolors were an 
unpleasant mixture between the white and yellow ground classes. 
They usually had a dirty white ground outside, and a washy thin 
yellow inside, and the marking would generally be a dubious kind 
of dirty purple outside, and would try to look like a bizarre inside 
the flower. They have fortunately disappeared, and are better 
dead. 
Selfs are of two colours only, and are either entirely white or 
entirely yellow. They look like breeders, but never break like 
them. They represent Tulips in which the marking colour has 
been entirely eliminated, and the ground colour only remains ; 
although little grown now they are, when pure and of good form, 
attractive flowers. The flamed but not feathered Tulip used to 
enjoy a certain amount of favour in the south, but the “ rugged 
north” frowned and would have none of it. The best variety of 
this class was Holmes’ King, a bybloemen, very pure, with no 
colour on the edges, and a beam of light purple down the centre 
of each petal. Its dainty colour makes it an attractive border 
flower, but along with others of a similar style, it has wisely been 
discarded from the Tulip bed. Flowers of this class look empty 
and foolish among their beautifully marked brethren. 
Chapter IV.— The Management and Culture op the Tulip. 
An old French work published about 1734 and entitled 
“ Spectacle de la Nature ” has a chapter devoted to Tulip culture. 
The style is colloquial, and the Countess and the Prior instruct the 
Chevalier on the cultivation of flowers. The chapter opens 
thus:— 
“Countess. —‘The Prior will instruct us in the cultivation of Tulips, 
but can you prevail on yourself, sir, to be contented with this entertain¬ 
ment ? ’ 
“Chevalier. —‘Contented, Madam 1 I really think it the most 
charming philosophy in the world, and none can ever complain that it 
leads them into thorny paths.’ 
“ Prior. —‘The most painful philosophy would never displease me if 
its effects were always so valuable as a single Tulip.’ ” 
The remainder of the chapter, although historically interesting, 
gives little information on the subject of culture, and I introduce 
these old-time flower lovers in the hope that all my readers will 
prove as amiable as the Chevalier, and that a portion of them will 
display some of the enthusiasm of the Prior. 
I must confess that I approach this portion of the subject with 
considerable diffidence. Every grower has his own methods of 
culture, and, flnding by experience that they succeed, naturally 
thinks they are the best. The truth, however, is that there are 
many good ways of growing the flower, and there is no patent 
compost which is absolutely necessary. There are so many differing 
conditions of situation, soil, climate, and atmosphere that it would 
be foolish in the extreme to dogmatise on this matter ; and believing 
as I do that experience is the true teacher, and the utmost that can 
be done by books is to put the novice on the right road, my office 
is rather that of a finger-post than that of the marvellously skilful 
“ Mr. Know-all ” whom we meet sometimes in old floricultural 
works instructing a miraculously ignorant “Mr. Would-know.” 
Before Tulips can be planted they must be obtained, and this 
is best done in July and August, although they may be got as late 
as November. Up to recently it has been very difficult for anyone 
wishing to form a collection of Tulips to do so, as the old trade 
growers, fairly numerous in the first half of the century, have been 
for many years extinct, and Tulips, up to three or four years ago, 
have been entirely in the hands of amateurs. They can now be 
procured from a well-known enterprising London firm of bulb 
growers, and also from one nursery in Scotland ; consequently, 
anyone wishing to start their culture may, at a very moderate 
outlay, do so, and most of the ordinary standard sorts can be had 
in this way. 
It is best to obtain the bulbs early, as they travel more safely 
before the root fibres begin to develop, and one can feel sure that 
they are there, and being properly attended to, for they require 
care and attention when out of the ground, second only to that 
which ought to be exercised after planting, for the bulbs are doing 
a very important work during their cool airy rest as it appears. 
"What this work is the Rev. F. D. Horner describes so well in a 
useful little work entitled “ Gardening for Amateurs,” published 
at Hull a few years ago, that I cannot refrain from quoting the 
whole paragragh. 
“ There is no suspended animation in the Tulip bulb. It is full of 
ripe and ready, active juices, and these are stirred by such nerve and 
pulse as may be in vegetable life, and are used at once, though invisibly, 
in building up tissue and structure of next year’s foliage, stem, blossom 
and seed pod, together with not least among the hidden wonders the 
germ of the bulb to follow. Cut through the bulb, when newly ripe in 
June, and you shall see nothing but so many fleshy juicy layers united 
on a base or radical plate. But watch the bulb from time to time as 
autumn draws on, and you will see that its very shape has been gradu¬ 
ally altering. Instead of losing flesh it seems to have gained it, and its 
tissues are fuller of sap than ever. They are tense, and bright, and 
fervent, while at the base of the bulb, its most vulnerable part, the 
coronal of fibres, with the point of almost every future rootlet pricking 
through is very prominent. Probably the pale tip of the young shoot, 
the ‘ guard leaf ’ as it afterwards becomes, is already visible. But if not 
dissection would reveal every leaf of the future foliage. Every petal of 
the coming flower, with every chance notch and imperfection of shape 
prefigured in it, every stamen, and the seed pod with its triple stigma. 
Only at this early stage the proportions of the various parts are not in 
their final order, for the embryo stamens are larger than the petals of 
the unborn flower, and there is little or no stem. Close by, and upon 
the radical plate like the rest, will be seen a far tinier shoot or eye, and 
this is the crescent bulb for a year beyond the present, contemporary 
offsets are similar germs, attached also to the radical plate and lying 
between folds of the parent bulb. If they are large they may be seen 
attached in the same way to the outer layer of the bulb.” 
Truly, it is a wondrous work the Tulip does in its seeming 
state of rest, and it is only fitting that it should have the con¬ 
ditions it enjoys when carrying it out. It is found that a cool dry 
rest above the ground is better than a wet one below it ; probably 
in its wild state it was drier during its period of rest, which would 
be the Eastern summer, than it ever could be in these watery 
latitudes. 
A collection of florists’ Tulips is always kept to name, so it is 
