552 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  December  3.9,  j.901. 
these  roots  beat  P otato-growing ;  they  beat  creation 
entirely ;  and  it’s  rowlin’  in  money  you’d  hev  to  be  to  touch 
em  at  all,  at  all,  they’re  so  dear  to  buy.”  Unconsciously, 
perhaps,  the  nail  had  been  struck  on  the  head,  and  the 
reason  there  are  not  more  bulb-growers  is  twofold  at  least. 
Firstly ,  the  best  and  most  suitable  land  is  limited  in  area 
and  difficult  to  secure,  and  then  the  best  and  choicest  stock 
bulbs  are  so  dear  to  buy.”  In  a  word,  although  bulb 
growing  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  pleasant  and  profit¬ 
able  of  all  soil  or  land  industries,  it,  at  the  same  time, 
demands  capital,  and  a  high  order  of  systematic,  industrial, 
and  commercial  intelligence. 
The  stocks  must  be  carefully  planted  in  clean  ground 
and  kept  rigidly  pure  or  true.  The  bulbs  must  be  carefully 
dug  up,  as  the  leaves  die  off  every  year  and  require  drying, 
cleaning,  grading,  and  storing  in  airy  sheds,  so  as  to  be 
readily  available  for  sale,  and  of  all  the  best  kinds  the  stock 
bulbs  must  be  again  replanted  on  fresh  and  newly-prepared 
land..  Bulb  growing  is  like  chess  or  billiards,  rather  un¬ 
certain,  and  now  and  then  the  unexpected  happens,  and 
there  are  losses  afield  from  disease,  or  unsuitable  stocks 
or  soil,  or  the  market  prices,  good  last  season  for  certain 
kinds,  may  fall  below  the  cultural  limit,  and  new  stocks 
nave  to  be  obtained  to  replace  them.  Even  when  in  the 
storing  sheds,  the  loss  of  a  label  or  a  number,  or  the  acci- 
dental  upsetting  of  a  stack  of  trays  or  boxes,  may  result 
m  mixed  stock,  which  must  be  either  sold  cheaply  as 
mixed,  or  planted  and  rogued  for  a  season  to  get  it  pure 
or  true  to  name  again.  In  growing  bulbs  the  personal 
equation  is  also  a  very  important  one.  Mr.  Arnold  White 
m  his  remarkable  and  suggestive  book  on  “  Efficiency  and 
Empne,  emphasises  the  fact  that  men  or  a  man  may  do 
anything  he  likes  provided  he  wants  it  enough ;  and  some 
believe  that  if  a  man  who  knows  bulbs  well  and  really  wants 
to  grow  them,  then  he  may  do  so  on  Irish  soil  quite  as 
well,  and  m  many  cases  better,  and  in  most  instances 
cheaper,  than  in  Holland  or  anywhere  else. 
As  we  have  said,  the  soils  of  Ireland  are  rich,  light, 
moist,  and  easily  worked,  and  all  around  the  coast  there 
are  choice  plots  and  sheltered  valleys  of  alluvium  that  are 
especially  suitable*,  to  the  healthy  growth  and  profitable 
increase  of  many  rare  and  valuable  bulbous  plants.  The 
climate  again  fights  for  us  in  the  matter.  It  is,  moist  and 
gsnidrL  equable  and  mild?  and  especially  so  from  December 
until  July,  when  bulbs  are  rooting  and  flowering  and  pre- 
paung  their  crowns  and  offsets  for  another  year.  Almost 
all  bulbs,  such  as  Snowdrops,  Crocus,  Narcissus,  English 
Ins,  Japanese,  or  Kaempfer’s  Iris,  Tulips,  and  Hyacinths 
are  half-aquatics  in  their  nature  and  growth.  That  is  to  say 
that  after  root  action  begins  and  until  they  flower  they 
enjoy  soils  that  are  moist  or  even  wet  in  preference 
to  dry  soils.  Thus  at  Straffan  and  elsewhere,  where 
bulbous  plants  generally  thrive  so  luxuriantly  on  the  grass, 
the  lawn  m  which  they  grow  there  is  now  and  then  sub¬ 
merged  by  a  foot  or  more  of  water  during  the  winter  and 
spring  months  of  the  year.  Even  if  not  submerged  occa¬ 
sionally,  bulbs  must  have  ample  supplies  of  moisture  when 
i?  A“1  growth,  and  at  Rush,  as  in  the  canal-intersected 
Hutch  bulb  farms  or  gardens,  water  is  found  lying  at  a  foot 
or  two  beneath  the  surface  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  rising 
.“^ber  in  winter,  and  lying  at  a  lower  depth  in  summer, 
but  stall  always  there.  When  this  is  so  in  soils  lying  low 
down  near  to  the  sea  or  river  levels,  bulbs  obtain  a  natural 
supply.  The  upper  surface  of  porous  or  sandy  soils  may 
look  and  is  very  dry,  but  an  inch  or  two  below  the  surface 
where  the  bulbs  are,  is  constantly  moist,  and  the  roots  of 
the  bulbs  obtain  ample  nutriment,  as  well  as  fresh  pure  air 
and  sunshine  energy,  and  it  is  under  such  conditions  that 
the  best  and  soundest  of  bulbs  and  flower  roots  generally 
are  grown  in  Ireland  as  well  as  elsewhere. 
In  Holland  bulb  culture  has  been  an  hereditary  pursuit 
or  calling  for  the  past  three  centuries  at  least,  and  it  is  a 
curious  historical  coincidence  that  bulb-growing  and  print¬ 
ing  should  both  have  been  started  in  Holland  at  about  the 
same  time.  The  art  or  craft  of  bulb  culture,  with  all  its 
technical  details,  has  been  a  growth,  and  the  bulb-growing 
son  has  succeeded  the  bulb-growing  father  from  generation 
to  generation,  and,  like  viticulture  in  France,  or  the  pruning 
of  old  Olive  trees  in  Lombardy,  the  mysteries  and  methods 
*re,  so  to  speak,  deep-seated  in  both  heart  and  brain,  or,  as 
one  might  well  say  they  are,  “  in  the  blood.”  Now,  as  is 
the  case  with  all  new  cultures  or  fresh  experiments,  it  will 
take  some  time  to  get  bulb-growing  “  into  the  blood  ” 
generally  of  the  average  or  ordinary  Irish  farmer  or  market 
gardener ;  still  in  some  favourable  cases  it  is  now  in  pro¬ 
gress,  and  even  in  rare  cases  is  actually  being  done.  We 
may  safely  assert  that  no  finer  or  better  bulbs  of  Narcissus, 
or  Daffodils,  Tulips,  Snowdrops,  Crocus,  Iris,  or  even  of 
Gladiolus,  and  Holland’s  own  speciality,  the  Hyacinth,  are 
produced  anywhere  than  are  the  best  of  those  grown  on 
Irish  soil.  So  far  we  have  not  grown  the  quantities  grown 
by  the  Dutch  in  Holland,  or  even  as  many  as  are  now  being 
grown  in  Surrey,  in  Cornwall,  and  the  Scilly  Islands,  or  in 
Lincolnshire,  where  soil  and  climate  resemble  those  of  Hol¬ 
land  in  many  ways.  Still,  the  quality  and  healthy  character 
of  the  best  of  Irish  grown  bulbs  is  past  all  denial. 
An  Irish  lady  gardener — viz.,  Miss  F.  W.  Currey,  of 
Warren  Gardens,  Lismore,  county  Waterford,  ha&  taken 
prizes  for  collections  of  Narcissi  at  the  Royal  Horticultural 
Society’s  and  other  large  English  flower  shows  and  exhibi¬ 
tions,  and  her  bulbs  command  the  best  prices  because  their 
quality  is  so  fine,  and  this  in  spite  of  isolation,  as  it  were, 
from  the  world’s  great  centres  and  markets.  In  the  South 
of  Ireland  the  earlier  and  well-ripened  kinds  of  Narcissus 
roots  were  being  dug  as  early  as  June  9,  and  they  are  this 
season  of  quite  exceptional  quality,  which  will,  no  doubt, 
be  welcome  news  to  those  who  purchase  them.  At  the 
Temple  Show,  held  in  London  in  May  last,  one  of  the  finest, 
choicest,  and  most  beautiful  displays  of  Tulips  were  those 
from  Ireland,  these  being  exhibited  by  Messrs.  Hogg  and 
Robertson  from  their  “Holland  in  Ireland”  bulb  grounds  at 
Rush,  county  Dublin,  and  another  came  from  Mr.  W.  Baylor 
Hartland,  of  Cork,  who  grows  his  flowers  and  bulbs  at 
Ard  Cairn,  within  sound  of  Father  Prout’s  “  Bells  of  Shan- 
don,”  and  fed,  no  doubt,  by  “the  Pleasant  Waters  of  the 
River  Lee.” 
Although  there  is  no  kind  of  Narcissus  really  wild  in,  or 
native  of  Ireland,  these  flowers  of  the  poets  have  long  ago 
been  inti'oduced  to  gardens,  and  have  become  naturalised 
in  and  around  many  old  and  derelict  country  places  “  avhere 
once  a  garden  smiled,”  as  Goldsmith  so  charmingly  puts 
it  in  his  “  Deserted  Village.”  Another  poet,  Wordsworth, 
in  describing  the  wild  Lent  Lily  of  England,  struck  a  true 
cultural  note  when  he  wrote  of  it  as  growing  “beside  the 
lake,  beneath  the  trees,”  since  it  enjoys  moisture,  shelter, 
and  that  half-shade  afforded  by  the  branches  of  deciduous 
trees  when  lightly  clad  in  their  earliest  springt'de  verdure. 
Shelter  from  very  high,  very  dry,  and  rough  winds  or  gales, 
so  common  in  March,  all  Narcissus,  Tulips,  and  other 
choice  bulbs  must  have,  or  their  leaves  and  flowers  are 
alike  disfigured  or  destroyed.  There  are  pet  spots  around 
the  south  and  south-western  shores  of  Erin  as  mild  and 
nearly  as  sunny  as  are  the  Isles  of  Scilly  ;  but  in  Ireland, 
as  in  Tresco  or  St.  Mary’s,  there  are  often  furious  gales, 
which  soon  ruin  a  good  crop  of  flowers,  and  injure  the 
bulbs  by  damaging  the  available  leaf  area  at  a  critical  period 
in  its  growth  and  action  on  the  bulb  below.  Even  at  Rush, 
in  county  Dublin,  where  Messrs.  Hogg  and  Robertson  estab¬ 
lished  a  bulb  farm  in  1895,  the  wind  is  terrible  at  times,  as 
it  sweeps  across  the  sandy  plateau,  either  from  the  north¬ 
east,  or  when  spi*ing  gales  tear  furiously  across  the  little 
fields  or  gardens  from  the  sea.  Each  little  plot  is  fortified 
by  sloping  earth  embankments  or  low  mud  walls,  and  hedges 
of  the  oval-leaved  Privet  and  other  hardy  shrubs  are  used 
in  addition  to  or  in  combination  with  the  earth-banks,  so 
as  to  break  or  filter  the  wind,  and  so  far  screen  flower  buds 
and  leaves  from  injury.  The  land  that  has  been  under  trial 
at  Rush  for  six  or  seven  years  consists  of  small,  irregular 
plots,  and  altogether  comprises  some  twenty-one  acres. 
The  kinds  of  bulbs  here  gi’own  largely  consist  of  Narcissus, 
Tulips,  Iris,  Ixias,  and  Sparaxis,  Gladiolus,  Anemone,  and 
Ranunculus.  Of  these  now  popular  flowers  the  finest  of 
varieties  and  new  seedlings  are  grown  with  every  success. 
About  six  acres  are  devoted  to  Narcissus,  and  the  col¬ 
lection  embraces  about  300  distinct  kinds.  The  collection 
includes  many  new  varieties  of  great  beauty  and  interest — 
e.g..  Lady  Margaret  Boscawen,  Brigadier,  White  Wings, 
White  Lady,  Countess  Cadogan,  Lady  Arnott,  Mrs.  H.  D. 
Betteridge,  Countess  Mayo,  Cloncurry,  Flambeau, 
Flamingo,  &c.  About  seven  acres  are  devoted  to  the  culture 
of  the  Tulip  in  its  many  diffei*ent  forms  and  phases.  The 
collection  embraces  early  single  and  early  double  varieties, 
Parrot,  Tulip,  May  Flowering,  Cottage  Garden,  Darwin, 
