-LULIP is a showy spring flower, fur¬ 
nishing the bright and gay colors that everyone 
looks for in early spring. It is very formal in habit 
and contour, the single tulip having graceful chalice¬ 
like lines. Every spring when the earth bursts forth 
in vivid red that is supplied by the tulips, we recall 
the myth of Isis, hurrying to a cold and desolate 
battle field where Horus lay wounded. As she knelt 
beside the god and wept, each drop of his blood 
that had fallen and made rich the then unproduc¬ 
tive earth arose again, a flower. Spring had come. 
The Turks cultivated the tulip long before the year 
1577, when it was introduced into England by 
Clusius, an early enthusiast of Austria who pro¬ 
pagated tulips on a large scale. In the history of 
the tulip there is a chapter on the “tulip mania” 
in Holland, which began in 1634 and lasted four 
years. The appearance in Holland, in 1591, of some 
specimens of Clusius stimulated interest in the 
tulip; it was rapidly propagated and soon became 
a favorite. There was a craze for new species and 
the price of bulbs was often higher than that of 
precious metals. Speculation was so rampant that 
the government had to interfere. After the craze 
subsided, production of varieties continued upon 
a normal basis and today Holland is the center of 
the bulb growing industry of the world. According 
to a folk-tale of Devon, the fairies used the wind 
blown tulips as cradles for their children. One night 
as a kind old woman went into her garden with a 
lantern, she discovered the little babes sleeping 
in the flowers and was so delighted that she planted 
more tulips. Soon there were sufficient cradles for 
all the fairies in that region. The fairies rewarded 
the woman’s kindness by making the tulips fragrant 
and brilliant, and brought happiness and luck to 
her as long as she lived. After the death of the woman 
a Worldly, money making man lived in the cottage; 
his first act was to destroy the tulip gardens and 
planted vegetables instead. The fairies were dis¬ 
turbed by this act and every night they would 
come out of the woods and dance on the vegetables, 
crushing them so that nothing thrived. But they 
kept the grave of the woman lovely and green. 
Fragrant, gorgeously colored tulips grew in clusters 
at the head, blooming long after other flowers had 
withered. Later, other men not appreciating beauty 
also came, and the grave was made level by tramp¬ 
ing feet, flowers were destroyed and woods cut down. 
The fairies then abandoned the place for the swift 
rolling hills and from that day the tulips lost frag¬ 
rance, brilliancy and size, but retained sufficient 
beauty to make them loved 
by all gardeners. 
