October 8, 1898. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
91 
MR. BARR IN AMERICA. 
Peter Barr was born at Govan—then a prosper¬ 
ous weaving village on the Clyde—in April, 1826, 
but more to his taste than looms or their products 
were the Tulip beds in his father's garden, and it was 
their beauty decided his fate. At an early age he 
was employed in the seed shop of Mr. Jas. Thyne, 
of Glasgow, eventually taking full charge of the seed 
department. His next appointment was with Messrs. 
Daly, Drysdale & Co., seed merchants of Newry, 
County Down, Ireland, when but twenty years of 
age, where he went through the terrible famine 
years of 1846-1847, caused by the general 
failure of the potato crop. From Newry he went 
to Mr. Richard Smith's nursery at Worcester, 
then only sixteen acres in extent, and a year or two 
afterward he was appointed manager to Messrs. 
Butler and McCulloch, of Covent Garden. After 
some years of experience in the London seed trade, 
Mr. Barr started as a seedsman in the Autumn of 
1861 under the style and title of Barr and Sugden. 
Two years later he commenced his labours on bulbs. 
He has devoted much attention to hardy garden 
plants as well as seeds, beginning with the Daffodils 
and Lilies, and studying also other groups—such as 
the Scillas, Hellebores, Fun kias, while more recently 
he has paid much attention to the beautiful genus 
Paeonia in all forms and variations, having travelled 
a good deal in Spain to collect the European species, 
some of which were known in herbariums, but un¬ 
known in cultivation. Mr. Barr will donate a collec¬ 
tion of these European species to the Botanical 
Gardens of New York, Harvard, University of Penn¬ 
sylvania, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, and other 
American institutions. 
Mr. Barr's last work was on the old florist Tulips 
of historical fame. He got together the older collec¬ 
tions of the Scotch, London, and Dutch to compare 
with the more modern of the midland counties and 
Lancashire, with the result that the modern men 
carried the day in form, chasteness of marking, and 
clearness of bottom. 
In his visitations to various growers' establish¬ 
ments in this vicinity Mr. Barr was delighted with 
the splendid work that these gentlemen are doing ; 
their methods of cultivation, and the results there¬ 
from, equal, he says, anything he has ever seen. He 
was particularly interested in the work that Super¬ 
intendent Falconer is doing at Schenley Park, which 
institution, he says, stands unique. The Department 
of Agriculture also received his highest eulogiums. 
As regards our cut flower stores, Mr. Barr re¬ 
marked : “ Wherever I have been I must say that we 
in London have got nothing to compare with your 
retail shops. You shew so much more; they are 
larger, and there is more life among them ; but then 
we are dealing in bouquets and wreaths, and you are 
dealing in posies—that is, handfuls of flowers stuck 
into a vase—and that makes a great difference. 
"Taken as a general thing your retail seed stores 
are fine; well fitted up and they appear to be well 
manned.'’ 
Speaking of bulb culture in America, Mr. Barr 
remarked ; 
" I was out on Saturday last at Mr. Hicks-Arnold’s, 
at Rye, N.Y The Daffodils there appeared to me to 
be produced as good as we can do them in England, 
both in flower and in bulb, but if it were made a 
point to plant them in an aspect facing the north and 
taking care that the soil holds sufficient moisture, I 
believe that as far as flower is concerned America 
could beat us. 
" In the past there has been a want of the funda¬ 
mental knowledge of success in growing the Daffodil; 
for example, growers have been manuring them. 
Well, that is just the thing that the bulb won't 
stand. They have been grown out in the blazing 
sun ; that is another thing they won’t stand ; W. K. 
Harris, for example, has Emperor, Empress, Hors- 
fieldi and Grandis, all magnificent things, but he has 
been manuring and leaving them in the broiling sun. 
I believe the time they suffer most from that is in the 
summer, and, of course, being in the sun, the duration 
of the flower is much shorter. Discussing the point 
with Hicks-Arnold and his gardener, I recommended 
them to get their bulbous plants all collected, and 
arrange them along a fine border he has facing the 
north. If they met the conditions suitable they 
would have a larger degree of success with the 
flowers and bulbs. 
" There are certain bulbous plants that America 
should be able to supply. I do not see why she 
could not do Daffodils, if the people make them¬ 
selves acquainted with the necessary conditions of 
culture. 
“ Now, it is no use for Americans to imitate 
Holland, and it is no use to have them go to Holland 
to get their information, because it is the conditions 
that the Dutch possess—in lying below the level of 
the sea and their soil or sand being permeated with 
water (they have also a clear atmosphere in Holland), 
that is the great secret of successful culture there. 
" I notice a Mr. Kains is to read an article at the 
Convention of the S.A.F.O.H., on Culture of Bulbs 
in America. Well, now, if I were there I might be 
of some use, though I am no speaker. But I have 
discussed the questions with him and if he has taken 
the initiative that I gave him, he will avoid running 
his head against a fence. Roman Hyacinths, he 
says, they can do as well in Virginia as in France. 
Well, I see no reason why they might not, because 
the cultivation of the Roman Hyacinth is the result 
of natural production. That is to say, the bulb is 
planted out and you get the increase naturally. The 
same with the Paper White Narcissus, the same with 
the double Roman Narcissus, the same with the 
Harrisii Lily—they are all natural productions. If the 
conditions are congenial there is no reason why in 
Virginia the production of bulbs should be otherwise 
than a success. 
" Bermuda has been successful in imparting a pre¬ 
cocity to the Japanese longiflorum. The softness of 
the climate and, I take it, softness of their soii, has 
enabled them to produce that bulb so that it will 
make a quicker growth and give an earlier flower. 
“ The same thing happened in the neighbourhood 
of Toulon, at Ollioules, France, where all the Roman 
Hyacinths come from. They are grown in the 
gorges there where there is a large amount of mois¬ 
ture in the soil. No other part of Europe has been 
able to produce the same quality of bulbs that is 
produced in the neighbourhood of Toulon ; that is, 
of Roman Hyacinths, Paper White and double 
Roman Narcissus. That place has had a monopoly 
ever since we have been growing these bulbs. 
Bulbs from Italy have sometimes been got, but they 
were not satisfactory. What America has got to do 
is to beat Ollioules. All the countries that force 
these bulbs receive their supplies from that dis¬ 
trict. 
“ As regards Tulips, I see no reason why they 
could not be grown here. I suspect that an advan¬ 
tageous aspect can be secured. Of course, the 
Dutchmen can grow them right in the open ground, 
but I take it their sun is never so hot nor the atmo¬ 
sphere so dry as in America. 
" But we can grow Tulips in England, although 
we cannot grow them to beat the Dutch. A good 
deal of the success of the Dutch is due to the 
manipulating and harvesting the bulb at the proper 
time. 
" When you come to grow Dutch Hyacinths 
there is a great difficulty to be overcome. First of 
all, you have got to get those extraordinary con¬ 
ditions which the Dutch possess in their sand and in 
their water, the water being very near the surface. 
I went on one occasion to see a new nursery in Hol¬ 
land that was being used for Hyacinth growing, and 
I found about 15 ft. of sand had to be removed before 
they could get the moisture necessary, and that was 
some feet below the nearest canal. When the 
Dutchman trenches his soil he goes down 6 ft., his 
object being to bring up entirely new soil. If the loam 
was trenched that depth unfertile soil would be the 
result. The Dutchman’s theory is this : ' We 
manure our ground, and the manure goes gradually 
down, down, down, and by trenching we bring it up 
again,’ so that their soil is never unfertile. My own 
theory is that the soil in Holland has the water con¬ 
tinually moving through it, not running in a volume, 
but always moving underneath the surface so that 
there never is any stagnant water. All these con¬ 
ditions have got to be considered. 
" In a recent number of your paper 1 saw some re¬ 
marks on * Hyacinth Propagation.’ I take excep¬ 
tion to the statement as to the time to propagate, as 
given in that article. Propagation should take place 
in July or August (but not in June) after the bulbs 
have been stored, dried, and are in good condition for 
handling. 
" In the case of crossing the bulb with the knife, 
that does not destroy any of the germ buds, but the 
product is numerically smaller and the young bulbs 
are larger than in the case of scooping. The motive 
in scooping is to remove every germ and allow the 
rings of the bulb to form bulblets. These will range 
in size from that of a Vetch seed to a large Marrow¬ 
fat pea when cooked. These bulblets are conse¬ 
quently numerous and take a greater number of years 
to reach selling size. They are sown in rows and 
the following season are sized. This process of 
sizing goes on until some of them obtain a saleable 
strength, which would commence from the fourth or 
fifth year, and before the batch was finished, pro¬ 
bably the seventh year of lifting and planting. 
“ Now, the question is, supposing the conditions 
are found favourable in Virginia, what about the 
labour, patience and intelligence of the operators ? 
These Hyacinths are lifted by hand with the view 
that no injury whatever be done to the bulb in the 
operation. For that reason the manure is carefully 
scanned for pieces of glass and other injurious 
material. To accomplish this work a new race of 
men would have to be propagated in America having 
as much patience as is exhibited by those in Holland, 
who supply the world with bulbs. Machinery, 
however nicely adjusted, will never, in my opinion, 
take the place of the hand for this particular work. 
" My own association with the Daffodil came about 
as follows; The men who raised the two grand col¬ 
lections of seedling Daffodils in England, were Mr. 
William Backhouse, a banker at Darlington, and 
Mr. Leeds, a stockbroker of Manchester. Both these 
collections came into my hands, and occupied me 
pretty nearly a dozen years in classing and naming. 
Some few had been classed by the raisers, but the 
great bulk had to be culled from the mixtures. The 
result was somewhere like 450 sorts of trumpet 
Narcissus, and hybrids of all grades running to the 
smallest. Thus Leeds had succeeded in his crossing 
till he had got to a stage below N. poeticus. Un¬ 
fortunately, before this classification and naming had 
been completed, the raisers passed away, so that we 
could not ascertain correctly their crosses, except by 
reasoning and such help as was furnished by the 
essay written by Dean Herbert on 1 Hybridisation of 
Vegetables.’ Thus the section Incomparabilis we 
argued was a cross between Poeticus and the trum¬ 
pet Narcissus of the yellow grades. A cross between 
Poeticus and the white trumpet Narcissus gave the 
section Leedsii. The section Barrii was, no doubt, 
the product of pollen from Incomparabilis on Poeti¬ 
cus ; and the section Burbidgeii of pollen from Barrii 
on Poeticus. 
" The above information may be useful to 
those desirous of raising new varieties of this very 
interesting family. It is well to remark that to get 
the large trumpet Daffodils it is necessary to work 
on trumpet Daffodils for both parents,and thus grand 
flowers such as Emperor, Empress, Grandis, 
Monarch, Weardale Perfection, &c., may be pro¬ 
duced, combining size, substance and floral qualities 
that make them durable in the field and lasting as 
a cut flower. Hybrids are obtained by taking the 
extremes of the species Narcissi. 
" Having completed my work in the classification 
of the two collections of Narcissi named, and 
gathered together all the varieties of Narcissus 
known to ancient authors, I travelled through the 
mountainous regions of Spain, and the French 
Pyrenees with the view of confirming the assumption 
of ancient botanists that the species known in cultiva¬ 
tion had their origin in those parts. I was able to 
confirm Parkinson in some few cases, and to discover 
forms unknown to early amateurs; for the Narcissus 
has only become a commercial plant of any impor¬ 
tance, within the last fifteen years. My most im¬ 
portant find in Narcissus was the hybrid Queen of 
Spain, which for chasteness of colour and elegance 
of form is unique. Many other hybrids were found, 
but were so constitutionally weak as to be of no value 
for garden decoration. 
" It may interest some to know that the Narcissus 
major and N. maximus are indigenous on the French 
Pyrenees, and though very plentiful as cultivated 
plants, they are extremely rare as wild plants. 
" My collection of Narcissus at one time repre¬ 
sented about 500 species and varieties and several 
millions of bulbs. 
"The Narcissus maybe cultivated anywhere in 
America as successfully as it is done in Great Britain 
and Ireland. The conditions have only to be con¬ 
sidered. For example, the Irish climate is moist and 
the Narcissus grows freely everywhere there. The 
Scotch climate is cold and the Narcissus grows 
beautifully anywhere in that country. The English 
climate is dry, and in the summer hot, as a role, and 
