112 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Mat 22, 1860. 
races crows and jays, magpies and jackdaws, and the 
latter Australian birds of a feather, and more particularly 
the parrot races of the new continent. Indeed, for bril¬ 
liancy and effect, no right comparison can be made be¬ 
tween the old Tulips and the new race. 
Here are thirty-two beds of these Tulips in succession. 
Each bed is seventy-five feet long, and contains ten rows 
of Tulips, and 125 “ roots ” in each row; but say one 
hundred in a row, and that makes 32,000. Then there 
are eight beds of offset bulbs in quantities, or 8000 more, 
in all 40,000; but a close numbering of them would reach 
up to 48,000 or 50,000 in all. Some of the kinds bloom 
with two, three, or four blooms to a bulb; and putting the 
whole together, the number of flowers is incredible: then 
the effect of the whole no one can conceive by merely 
reading about it. All these beds have the ends to the 
public road, and every one who passes may see them all 
at one glance over a low boundary-wall. Her Majesty 
and suite often ride past in the afternoon, and pull up on 
purpose to view the splendid sight, in which there are 
more crows, queens, kings, and emperors, than ever met 
together out of Holland. 
There is also an experimental narrow bed of 103 yards 
running down at the ends of the large beds, and parallel 
with the public road. In this bed are four rows, and ten 
bulbs of each kind of Tulip are planted all the way down 
in succession—or hard upon four hundred kinds, including 
single, double, and distinct species, and only one florist’s 
Tulip in the whole lot—a fine yellow Tulip of some 
English grower, there on trial of course. That is the 
time and place for the young ideas to study and learn the 
best ways of planting flower gardens on the principles of 
all known styles. A professor could teach more real 
useful knowledge there in a month, or five weeks, than 
another could possibly do in five years, hammering from 
old books and fresh-gathered specimens of any known 
flora under the sun. 
The following selections will be the next best help to 
learn to plant according to colours, and the best kinds to 
buy by the dozen, or score, or hundred, for spring 
bedding. But there is “ only one way, and one way 
only,” to have them in perfection, without interfering 
with the former crop in the same beds or the later crop 
which is to succeed the spring Tulips ; and that way is to 
have all the bedding Tulips in the ground by the 20th of 
September in each year—never later by one day, but as 
much earlier as you choose back to the very middle of 
August. Put down each kind by itself on a border, and 
merely cover it, just as one might put down so many 
kinds of Potatoes to sprout before planting them. The 
secret of having early Potatoes is to sprout early kinds 
earlier than planting-out time; and it is precisely the 
same with Tulips and all other bulbs that are useful in 
bedding. All spring bulbs should be sprouted in the 
autumn as early as possible, and any time before Christ¬ 
mas will do to transplant them from the sprouting to the 
flowering-beds; so that a late frost, and consequently a 
late taking up of bedding in October, is, or need not be, 
the slightest hindrance to growing bulbs of all kinds in 
the regular flower-beds. Aud not only that, but a better 
change; for by this plan the beds for Geraniums, Ver¬ 
benas, Petunias, Calceolarias, and all the rest of them, 
must be made up yearly at the end of October and through 
November, first for these bulbs, and to be ready in May 
to plant all the young stock of summer bedders between 
the rows of bulbs, if the bulbs are not then ripe enough to 
be removed. May is a busy time in gardening, but 
November is not so; you are waiting till all the leaves 
are down before you “ clear up ” for next season. 
If we begin with Scarlets. The Scarlet Van Tlwl is the 
best bedder of that colour. The next shade is Vermilion 
Brilliant, the favourite bedder at the Experimental. Next 
shade Rembrandt. The next Feu d'Anvers and La Belle 
Alliance, fine kinds, or tints, nearest to scarlet in Tulips, 
and not one of them as good as Vermilion Brilliant. 
Pure Crimsons, as represented in Tulips. Cramoise 
Fiddle, crimson scarlet; Couronne Fourpre, blood crim¬ 
son ; Royal Queen, real crimson; Couleur Cramoise, 
crimson scarlet; and Sunbeam, crimson scarlet and golden 
bottom. These ten comprise the very cream of the 
highest and richest tints, and we break with the clearest 
whites for strongest contrast. White Van Thai, Reine 
Blanche, Queen Victoria, Alba Reg alls, Luna, and 
White PottebaTcher; the latter is the tallest white and 
for centre of beds. Queen Victoria is the next size and a 
clearer white. 
Bronze-red and Crimson, a rich effective tint. La 
Majesteuse, Holofernes, and Artemis. 
Bright Bose or Cherry on white ground. Cerise non 
Rectifie, Drapeau de Rouge (fine), Couleur Ponceau 
(ditto), and Sultana (a gay thing). 
Deep Bose or Salmon, a scarce shade in Tulips. Monu¬ 
ment being the only real best of it here. 
Self or pure Yellow. Yellow Pottebalklcer, Golden 
Prince, Yellow Van Thai, and Canary Bird, all very rich 
aud splendid in single beds of each. Golden Prince being 
mv own favourite yellow, but all the rest are just as good. 
Buff-yellow, another rare tint, and has the very same 
effect as a few plants of light-brown Calceolarias would 
make mixed at equal distances in a bed of yellow Calceo¬ 
larias. '17/os. Moore is the only really true of this tint. 
White ground with deep Bose or Cherry-feathered, a 
very gay and telling class. Leander, Duchesse de Clair- 
mond, and Rose and Silver Claremonts, both these Clare- 
monts are very showy. 
Yellow with Bronze-red stripes. Grand Due and Hof 
Van Brabant. 
Bronze-red with Yellow line on the top or margin. 
Lr us villa, and Commandant, two very effective kinds. 
Dwarf Bronzed-yellow streaked with Rose, blooming 
with many flowers like a Crocus. Bizard, Verdict, and 
Souvenir. 
Bronze-red or Crimson, with a broad Yellow belt or 
margin, a showy class. Arcliduc d’Autriche, Due de 
Chartres, Due Vorhelm, and Prince of Orange. 
White, feathered with Cerise or Crimson Bose. Tendre, 
Cour de France, and Foiling Assingaris. 
Orange-shaded Scarlet. Couleur de Cardinale. 
Puce or dark Purple, with Lilac or White margin. 
Arehus or Carman, and L.ac Van Ryn. 
White with Cherry or Crimson flakes. Grootmeester 
and Standard Royal, alias Royal Standard, and as a 
single bed by itself, is the showiest kind of all the Tulips. 
Golden Standard is nearly as good, and both were the 
best forcing Tulips twenty-five years back. 
White flushed and belted with light Bose, or the Meg 
Merrelies of Tulips, a giddy gay thing certainly, name 
Rose Rinante. 
Violet-crimson Self. Due de Luxembourg. 
Violet-purple with White marginal lines. Violette 
Hative and Belle Laura. 
Pure Purple or Self Purple, Moliere; and such an enu¬ 
meration of bests in all the classes of bedding Tulips, 
could never have been made in England previous to 1860. 
To get at the top and bottom of these classes, I had to 
enlist the best head and eyes in London to assist me, Mr. 
W. Wood, the great writer on the scientific culture of 
propagation and training of plants ; the author of the 
one-shift system, and of many other shifts, great, small, 
and middling. We were certainly birds of a feather that 
day. ^ "We had it all over again, like the twa dogs in 
Burn’s Poems; and Lord John Bussell in his place in 
Parliament, has recently declared his opinion, that there 
was more philosophy in these twa dogs than in all the 
opposition dogs put together in one pack ; but the rising 
generation of bedding-out planters must decide the value 
and extent of our philosophy in this matter. 
The double Tulips are later than the above, which are 
all single. Tournesol and Rex Rubrorum are the best 
known of them, but others are just as good ; and as one 
