66 in S T O E Y OF GAEDENING. P a e t I.
between the bulbs, eight of those capable of of the*^Vulhi The kinds
long, but they may be put »^aver or tavthcr anart i^ccc^rd ug example. I’Amic du Cceur ;
which grow high and strong and the Empcior Alexander, arc not planted more
but th e smaller kinds, such as ‘he Duch s ot 1 .. because as the germ prevents the
than four inches deep. Dry weather causes th e bulb to ro t.” In December b u lb from b e in g conipletoly closed, the r ^ year being put
a c o v e r in g o f reeds is put over each heel, There is a covering also on the
under the new one, so that the whole ® ®,.' ‘ When there is a continuance of ram, the trenches
sides of the trenches, thstcned down *?y n March, when frost is no longer uppreare
filled with water, which must be m m c d ^ c ly rem o v e ^ m i ,
hendcd. th e covering of the beds is taken off; . nd alter tncj nave gurtace, and prevents
watered with a mixture ot cowdung and w a t ^ 1« gftdens the ground which is intended
th e wind from causing any m rch and f'""- wi,A..¿ii'c'wind from causing any Irregularity m tne ocas , XeeUUbba.rarrornwwffuullss ooff ppuurree ccooww--
for hyacinths the following year is j^^d the plants arc then carefully examined, to
dung to the square yard. April is th e ti?«e o How^^^ j j j ^hat are pure, and to
s e c .H y a n y a c c id e n t,o n e o r wo of t j ,, U v e s grow
pick them out. Alter the bulbs have nowereu, tne mw
stronger, and laid in a place "'*'®re they can J y > j.an„ot’even bo used as manure for trees, &c.,
liyacinth beds, they would,cause all th e to rot. J property, and to such adcgrec
because, if they are not poisonous, ßve or six hours among them, become red
that ill the month of October th e labourers, ° terminates. The pain even prevents slecn.
and fiery all over, and are m being pulled out first, and then the bulb
Tho bulbs are taken up towards /o u rs after the leaves arc removed,
is taken up immediately, as, if it is lelt ® ^ serious injury. When the bed is empty,
th e moisture from the earth penetrates into t / « ‘ S a luilf broad, is fta d e quite flat and firm,
it is raked smooth, aud a strip m the centre, f t» a foot nroa^,^
e ither with the back of th e spade or by f . P J ' - s s p
are laid in rows, and great c a re 's take, th at ^ ^ \om n eac , ^f the
the same way, aud are turned to th e south 1 ^ ^ ® / ^ ^ a s taken up. W’hcn the bulbs
l e a v e s s h o u l f t i a v e b r o k e n , a n d not come off entirely b e ^arth from both sides is thrown over
are placed on th e strip of ground f t " ® / f t m i d f t f t the the^earc ^
them two nr three inches thick., 1 f t ®mstances If the bulbs arc large and well grown,
length of time they lie in the A;a«^ d e p e fts ft^tcumstftccs^^^^^
they lie only about a fortnight, because it they are | ^ t,jg three or four weeks.
K i \ S S i if it is at all damp and warm, the bulbs are much
s o o n e r i n j u r e d than when th e weather IS dry. TYihldlr»
183. Theflorimankts, Bose oFscrvc-s, were nmcli more 20 OOo“ rancs
’•11 • "u ^ 1 qJ \ a -few kiiul<i were vijluccl fit froni ten to twenty guiltleis,
S Ä i s i S h a “ F * » . « ■“
S h a k e ,L “re, toe Queen, Sir II. Pottingor, Lady Sale, and Grace Darling ; tlic lattei two
generally seUing for throe or four gnmoas a bulb.
184 Tdivcmania. Beckmann, in Ins Bista-ij o f Inventions (jol. i. p. 36.), las a
in toe gaklen of toe celehrated Peiresc. The Dutch merchants, who wcie
flowers, rent to Constantinople for tulips as soon as they became known ; and * 0
th n t were nlantcd in England were sent from Vienna about the end of t f t sixteentn
century according to Hakluyt, who says “ they were procured tlnthcr a little before, from
Constantinople by an excellent man, Carolus Clusius.” Jo h n Barclay, the a\ithor of the
Tatin rom aL c Argenis &c., employed his vacant hours in the cultivation of a flowcr-
Latin romance f j " V^vthrams') relates, that he cared not for those bulbous
? o " c h p ^ X i e ^ Z ^ o i f S I S Ä W t he cultivated such as produced
flowers void of smell, hut having a variety of colours. Hence we ^
n n e of the first of those who were infected with the tulipomania. B a id ay had it to tiiiU
C L t a n s L f tois flower
B o o k I. DUTCH GARDENS.
were caiTicd. I f we may give credit to Beckmann, ivho states it on Dutch autliorities, four
liundrcd perils in weight (somctliing less than a grain), of the bulb of a tulip, named
Admiral Eeifken, cost four thousand four hundred florius; and two hundred of another,
named Semper Augustus, two thousand florins. Of this last, he tells us, it once happened
there were only two roots to he had, the one at Amsterdam, the other at Haarlem ; aud
tliat for one of these were offered four thousand six hundred florins, a new cairiagc, two
grey horses, aud a complete set of harness; and that another person offered for it twelve
acres of land. I t is almost impossible to give credence to such madness. The real tmth
of the story is, that these tulip roots were never bouglit or sold, hut they became tiie
medium of a systematic species of gambling. The bulbs, and their divisions into perils,
became, like the different stocks in om* public funds, the objects of the ‘ bulls ’ and
‘ b ea rs; ’ and were bought and sold at different prices from day to day, the parties settling
their accounts at fixed periods; the innocent tulips, all the while, never once appearing in
the transactions, nor being even thought of. ‘ Before the tulip season was over,’ says
Beckmann, ‘ more roots were sold and purchased, bespoke and promised to be delivered,
than in all probability were to be found in the gardens of Holland ; and when Semper
Augustus was not to be had anywhere, which happened rtvice, no species, pcrliaps, was
oftcner pm-chased and sold.’ This kind of sheer gambling reached at length to such
a height, that the government found it necessai-y to put a stop to it.” (Tour in South
Holland, p. 88.)
185. I'he Dutch and Flemish gardeners have many curious practices; such as training
fruit trees in particular shapes, clipping shrubs, disguising flowers and fruits, &c. Mr.
Knight, of tlie exotic nursci-y, lUng’s Road, Chelsea, who visited Holland in 1830, found
the divarf fruit trees, in some gardens, trained in the shape of saucers, not more than
three feet high, but ten feet in diameter; others in the form of a bowl or a v a se ; some
with a stem only one foot high, with two branches proceeding from it, horizontally, in
opposite directions, “ with shoots covered with spurs, rising pcqicndicularly from these
two horizontal branches, at equal distances; those in the centre of the plant three feet
high, gi-adually diminisliing to one foot at the extremities, and having altogether a
strangely artificial appearance.” (Gard. Mag. vol. vi. p. 318.) Another writer in the
same work mentions flower-pots resembling miniature ruins, or stumps of trees, in Avhich
succulent plants are placed ; and gourds half green, half yeUow, or in gi-ecn and yclloAv
stripes, the pale stripes produced by arranging narrow pieces of tape on the fruit while
growing, in order to exclude the light. The curious sometimes leads to tho useful; and
a genuine Ioa’C of plants may be often first excited in some breasts by the wonderment
caused hy a grotesque flower-pot of succulents, a hcdge-hog of crocuses, or by the production
of a cucumber bcai-ing the initials of the grower. (Gard. Mag., vol. ii. p. 227.)
In some cases words were produced on gom-ds in white letters, by cutting them out in
paper, and pasting them on the gourds when young.
186. Many new varieties o f Azalea have lately been raised by the Belgians, and all the
best of them have been imported into England. The Belgians have also raised many
beautiful varieties of Phlox, several new camellias, and many other new varieties or species
of showy plants or shrubs, which soon find their way into other countries. Orange-trees,
roses, and Robinta inermis, the two latter budded standard high, ai-c common importations
by the London nurserymen ; as are also some other shmhs and bulbs, and various
kinds of flower seeds.
.1
ii
: r
S u b s ec t . 3. Dutch Gardening, in respect to the Culture o f Fruits and Culinary Vegetables.
187. The Dutch and Flemings are eminent as fr u it gardeners ; hut, as Harte ohsei-ves,
they are better operators than Avritcrs ; and having at the same time a good deal of the
spirit of gens de métier, we have scarcely any thing to offer in the way of historical
information. Those gardens whieh Gesner and Stephanus infonn us were so richly
stocked with flowers eai-ly in the sixteenth centui-y, would, no doubt, be equally so with
fruits and legumes. One of the earliest books on the horticulture of the Low Countries
is Heni-y Van Oosten’s Der Niederländische Gai-ten, 8vo, Hannau, &c., 1706. They
appear at that time to have had all the fi-uits now in common cultivation, in considerable
vai-iety, excepting the pine-apple. This fi-uit, Miller informs us, was introduced about
that time, by De la Coua-t, of Leyden, from the West Indies. I t is generally said that
about the same period all the courts in Europe Averc supplied Avith early fruits fr-om
Holland. Bdnard admits (quoted in Repertory o f Arts, 1802) that this Avas the case
with the court of France so late as the reign of Louis the Foia-tcenth. Miller informs
us that Do la Couit paid gi-cat attention to gai-dening, and especially to the culture of
Avall-finiits ; and that he tried the effects of different kinds of Avails, and different modes
of training. Speechly, eai-ly in the eighteenth century, made a tour in that counti-y,
chiefly to observe the Dutch mode of cultivating the pine and the grape : they forced,
he informs us (T r. 07i the Vine), chiefly in pits and low houses, and produced ripe
F 2