THERE PROBABLY NEVER WAS A MORE 
GORGEOUS SIGHT THAN THE DUTCH 
BULBS IN BLOOM THIS PAST 
SPRING AT LAP ARK 
I T HAS been my privilege to enjoy many floral displays, but I never 
dreamed anything could be so overwhelmingly beautiful as the great 
beds of Bulbs that brought visitors to Lapark from miles around dur- 
og the season that is drawing to a close as I write these lines, but a day or two 
before Memorial Day. 
Last Winter the United States was visited by more than one hundred and 
twenty Bulb growers from Holland, very many more than ever before, largely be¬ 
cause the markets of Germany and Russia are still closed to Bulb trade, and both 
of these countries, before the War, were heavier buyers of Bulbs than America. 
Lapark is one of the first points visited by these men, on account of the in¬ 
creasingly large orders we have been placing every year for the growing of 
Bulbs for us in Holland. The stories they have been telling us year after year 
of the great display of colors in the Bulb fields of Holland have set us thinking 
that if we would only take the time to plant the Bulbs we might have at least 
a little bit of Holland right here at Lapark. 
And so, last Fall, very late, too, as we had so much to do, we planted about half-a-hun- 
dred thousand Dutch Bulbs of all sorts at Lapark, carefully labeling each variety so that 
when it bloomed we might see just how closely it adhered to color and form, in its new 
home, and be able to revise our catalogue description where'ver necessary. 
As you all know, the season was a most unusual one, Spring coming almost a month 
ahead of the average. Why, Bulbs were actually poking their heads through in February. 
The CROCUSES enjoyed their full blooming season. They were simply enormous, ever 
so much larger than the flowers'thrown up by the Bulbs that were planted here years ago. 
But the HYACINTHS were short lived. Just as they began to open up they were nipped 
a little, and as usual, the earliest and finest specimens suffered most. However, they re¬ 
covered splendidly and were soon all in full bloom, and I simply have no words adequate 
to describe the bewildering beauty of row after row of intense coloring, great, enormous 
spikes the like of which I have never before seen outdoors, each flower perfection in color 
and form, true to name and to my catalogue description. And the perfume! The air for 
hundreds of yards around was actually laden with the most wonderful odors ever dispensed 
by a bountiful Mother Nature. 
But just then when we might have enjoyed the glorious display for at least three weeks 
longer, old Father Winter suddenly took it into his head to teach the stripling Spring she 
must not encroach too early, and we were visited by one of the hardest freezes of the 
whole Winter, so hard that we had ice an inch and a half thick, and the great, thick spikes 
of lovely bloom broke off like icicles and shriveled up when the sun came out. 
Some of the NARCISSUS were also frozen, but they were not quite so far advanced 
as the Hyacinths and suffered less. But it was sad to see them hang their lovely golden 
heads for even a morning. We had planted some of every catalogued variety, and they 
bloomed one after the other, each in its own season. Such a display of yellow was never 
V 
