Tulipa Gesneriana versicolor.

O speak wisely of the tulip in four small pages of large type-how is it to be done? It can only be done, if done at all, by concentrating attention on matters of practical importance and ignoring matters that a lover of flowers may be ignorant of to advantage. This is the preface.

Tulips have been cultivated from time immemorial, but the so-called tulipomania is of too recent a date to have acquired the flavour of antiquity. It was at its height from 1634 to 1637, and was soon over; like any other bubble, it was too thin and too hollow to last. The records of

its extravagances tax our powers of belief, but few histories of mistakes and follies are so amply illustrated with evidence we cannot dare to question. In the register of the city of Alkmaar, 1637, is an entry of a sale of tulips for the benefit of the Orphan Hospital, when 120 bulbs were sold for 9,000 florins, and one of these-the Viceroy

brought 4,203 florins. A florin then represented a bushel of wheat, and by this standard the value of the single bulb may at any time be estimated in current money. With wheat at 50s. the quarter, the equivalent in money would be about £1,314. Beckmann relates that about half an ounce weight (400 perits) of the variety named Admiral Leifken was sold for 4,400 florins, and half that weight of Semper Augustus realised 5,500 florins. In

the " "History of Inventions" the story is fully and amusingly told, and we should but waste our space in attempting to repeat or summarise it. But we must warn all that the florists had nothing to do with it. The gamblers and speculators knew nothing of the flowers but their names and the latest prices realised. A 'certain number of Dutchmen had gone mad, and another body of Dutchmen were ready to profit by the event. If the history casts any reflections of an unpleasant nature, they do not fall on the florists in particular, but on human nature in general.

The class of tulips in which the florists take especial delight are not, generally speaking, costly; but the difficulty of obtaining them, in the first instance, the peculiar nature of their special technical merits, and the slow rate at which, in many cases, they are multiplied, combine to invest them with a considerable money value during the early years of their appearance. In this respect they are like other commodities, but the demand, though limited, being pretty constant, the money value of tulips does not fluctuate with anything approaching to violence. Within the experiences of the present generation, the highest price offered for a single bulb was £100. Mr. Goldham refused an offer of this amount for a bulb of Louis XVI.

The highest catalogue price of a single bulb in late years is £20, this being the sum named by the late Mr. Lawrence for a bulb of Charles Williams; and it might be that the variety was entered at a higher price than any one would pay to keep down the demand until a reasonable stock could be secured by propagating. In the catalogue of tulips issued by a well-known florist there are 234 sorts named. The highest price for any one is 63s., and at this price there are three entered-namely, Everard, Duchess of Cambridge, and Gem of Gems. A considerable number of noted sorts are entered at from 2s. 6d. to 5s. each; and the aggregate of the prices of the 234 sorts is £81, less 6d., or an average of a fraction under 7s. each. A thoroughly good bed of tulips may be purchased for £60; and those who enter upon tulip culture cautiously and with good judgment may in a few years accumulate a collection of real merit. at considerably less cost than will appear from these considerations.

But the lover of gay garden flowers need not enter into these considerations, for the early tulips, which the florists do not recognise, are better adapted for grouping in beds and growing in pots for the conservatory than the late or exhibition tulips; and the best of these may be purchased at 15s. per 100, and if named varieties are not wanted, for half that rate. As the history led us into the money question, it appeared a matter of duty to intimate that a short purse might cover a long list of tulips. But here we must quit the subject, and this completes the history.

In this country tulips are found to thrive best in sandy loam enriched with a moderate amount of rotten hot-bed manure and leaf-mould. A rank soil, such as would suit cauliflowers, is above all things to be avoided, and wherever