Category: Travel Writing

Dutch Bulbs and Gardens

Undoubtedly the way to go to the Bulb Gardens of Holland is to go the way by which the bulbs come to England. Or at least follow that route to a certain extent—the bulbs usually make part of the inland journey in their own country by canal boat, neither a very possible nor a v...

Chapters

1. CHAPTER VI

2. CHAPTER I

Undoubtedly the way to go to the Bulb Gardens of Holland is to go the way by which the bulbs come to England. Or at least follow that route to a certain extent—the bulbs usually...

3. CHAPTER II

Winter in the bulb country is not a very attractive time, at least to the foreigner. The same possibly may be said of winter in England, though few healthy Englishmen, unless ti...

4. CHAPTER III

Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo, accidentally met death at the hands of that god, through the interposition of jealous Zephyr. Apollo, after grieving for his favourite, cried to h...

5. CHAPTER IV

Exactly what influences favour in flowers, or indeed in most other things, it is hard to say; no Dutch bulb-grower ever attempts to do so. It may interest the leisurely student...

6. CHAPTER V

The Tulip is the aristocrat of bulbs, the one with whose name is connected squandered fortunes, romantic tales, long history, and other attributes of traditional aristocracy. It...

7. CHAPTER VI

There is, without doubt, a certain charm in bulb barns; not perhaps quite the charm of an old English barn, wherein there is ever a brown twilight and never a straight line, and...

8. CHAPTER I.—INTRODUCTION

Saint-Simon, writing in the year 1768, declares there were at that time in Haarlem nearly two thousand named varieties of the hyacinth, and we may suppose they had already been...

9. CHAPTER II.—BULBS

It has already been shown what sort of appearance the _outer tunics_ present, and it has been explained how the tunics in general are formed. We are now going to push our examin...

10. CHAPTER III.—YOUNG BULBS

Having thoroughly examined roots, leaves, and tunics, we now come to the organs of reproduction, and as the young bulbs form them themselves very oddly and irregularly at the ba...

11. CHAPTER IV.—SEEDS

Although there is a way of propagating hyacinths by seed, like other plants, yet it should be known to all that it is seldom that a double hyacinth produces seed, and such a thi...

12. CHAPTER V.—ORGANS OF REPRODUCTION

The various species of hyacinths, though apparently different and distinct, are essentially alike. Bulbs of one sort differ very little from those of another—the leaves are alwa...

13. CHAPTER VI.—GENERAL

In the cultivation of hyacinths it is impossible to keep to any fixed rule. Not only must every country and climate make its own, but every hyacinth has its own ways and customs...