Dutch Bulbs and Gardens

CHAPTER VI. Bulb Barns, Names, and Growers 104

BULB BARNS, NAMES, AND GROWERS 104

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APPENDICES

BY SOPHIE LYALL

PAGE

HYACINTH CULTURE AT HAARLEM IN THE EIGHTEENTH 121 CENTURY

THE TULIP TRADE, FROM DE KONING’S “HISTORY OF 168 HAARLEM” (1635)

III

THE HYACINTH TRADE, FROM DE KONING’S “TAFEREEL 171 DER STAD HAARLEM” (1808)

INDEX 173

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Het Loo Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

2. The “Berceau,” Het Loo 8

3. Palace Gardens, Het Loo 16

4. Azaleas, Het Loo 24

5. The Return of the Storks 28

6. The Promise of Spring 32

7. A Crocus Field 40

8. Hyacinths scattered on the Sand 48

9. “In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and 56 white, like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery”

10. Spanish Irises 64

11. A Bulb Farm near Overveen 68

12. “They spring, they bud, they blossome fresh 72 and faire, and decke the world with their rich pompous showes”

13. Bulb Time, Haarlem 78

14. Tulips in their Prime 84

15. “Here are tulips for you—white, for the 88 bridal or the burial”

16. “Whose leaves with their crimson glow Hide 94 the heart that lies burning and black below”

17. Darwin Tulips 100

18. A Bulb House 104

19. Flower-Market, Haarlem 108

20. Hyacinth Flowers going to Market 112

21. A Bulb-Grower’s Garden 116

22. “When Spring unlocks the flowers to paint 128 the laughing soil”

23. A Boatload of Fragrance 144

24. A Dutch Garden in Spring 160

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DUTCH BULBS & GARDENS

CHAPTER I. On Getting There

ON GETTING THERE

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 very comfortable proceeding for the average traveller. But for the rest, their route is the one for those who have leisure and who want to get to the gardens in the most suitable way.

One boards a little Dutch steamer at the Tower Stairs, a steamer that seems in the greatest hurry to be off, but never is, though everyone and everything, including the steam escape, are very busy till it finally shrieks itself under the Tower Bridge and so down the river. These steamers are sometimes slightingly referred to as cargo boats, and certainly the bulbs, in their clean white packing cases, come to England that way; and when they are not coming, Dutch cheeses in quantity and other things take their place. But the passenger accommodation has much to recommend it. I remember a large deck cabin, much larger and lighter than a good deal of the first-class accommodation on the great Indian and Australian liners. I remember sheets of stout Low Country linen, reminiscent in their scent of woodruff of the Spanish mahogany dower chests where housewives lay up their gear with the aromatic herb. I remember a snug place with a swinging lamp and lockers, more suggestive of the cabin of the “Schooner Hesperus,” when “the skipper had taken his little daughter to bear him company,” than the saloon of a cross-Channel steamer. It is true the food is Dutch, but if, as not infrequently happens, one is sole passenger, one has it when and where one pleases, which is a compensation. It is true, too, there is no stewardess, and not often anyone who speaks much English on board, and that the journey takes rather long, but these are trifles.

By choosing the right tide, one drops down the river in the afternoon, in itself an interesting and instructive thing; spends the night at sea, which if one has to go to sea seems the best time to spend there; and, if it is summer, sees the piers of Ymuenden when sea and sky look like the two halves of a pink pearl in the dawn. After Ymuenden one is in the Great Canal of Amsterdam, and it is a bad sailor who can then find reason to object to the motion or vibration. The latter appears principally to be connected with the steam whistle, which gives notice of approach to railway bridges, and the former to be rather conspicuous by its absence. Children driving goats to pasture and early astir pedestrians seem as if they could easily outdistance the very steady and matronly pace of the little steamer. But it is quite suitable, everything else on the water moves at the same pace, which agreeably allows of greeting and conversation with occasional sister craft, even allows of learning what they have for breakfast on board. And no doubt it is necessary,—the banks which shut the canal from the land, usually lying below the water-level, are very soft; even as it is, dredgers, those most fascinating craft of childhood, are eternally at work.

It appears to be the cautious custom of the country not to open the swing railway bridges within twenty minutes of the scheduled time of a train’s coming. As the trains do not invariably keep time, there are occasionally long waits for the steamers, which, being privately owned, wait the good pleasure of the State-owned railways. But it does not very much matter, there is the better chance to look around and see the country, which is so very flat here that there is a great deal of it to be seen; and so wide and peaceful that it puts to rest the sense of hurry. One who goes to the bulb gardens does well to put that sense to rest, for, seen hastily, run through in a few hours or a day at most, they produce little but an impression of sheets of gorgeous colour, which might possibly have been more beautiful had they been otherwise arranged. Time is wanted to see them, the leisureliness which regards them as gardens rather than as so many acres of scarlet, blue, or white, and the opportunity of knowing a few of the flowers individually. It is for this reason, among others, and as a suitable preparation to the leisurely observation, that a man does well to go to the gardens the way the bulbs come; and does well to possess his soul in patience, while the Dutch captain attends the pleasure of the man who minds the bridge, and while the steamer creeps up to Amsterdam.

The national virtue of Holland, the Holland one sees from the canal, is industry; not energy exactly, certainly not ‘hustle’ or any kindred thing, but industry, coupled with a neatness which keeps even the ditches tidy, and does not allow of that inalienable right of the English rural dweller, the garden rubbish-heap. The Dutch strike one as more industrious than anything else in the world, unless perhaps ants, to a community of which, it must be admitted, they bear some resemblance. The national ideal, at least in the bulb district, is cleanliness. About the highest praise to be bestowed on anything is that it is clean. A fine tulip bulb in its shining yellow-brown skin is extolled as “so clean”; the curious sandy soil in which the bulbs grow is spoken of with pride as always clean; the great compliment to be paid to a bulb barn is that it is clean. Possibly one of the advantages of the growers’ work is that it is clean.

It is, I believe, customary to speak of Amsterdam as the Venice of the North. For one who has not seen Venice it is impossible to draw a comparison, but it seems difficult to imagine much resemblance between them—beyond the fact that both possess canals and houses and history. Amsterdam somehow reminds one of Dickens’ novels, it is immensely interesting, rather crowded, real, busy, homely, and genuine; not suggestive of devastating passions or high romance exactly, but very comfortable and wholesome. One would expect it to dine early, to attend to business, and have a substantial supper. This is not meant to imply that everyone in Amsterdam does these things, only that that is the general impression produced by the town. One can perfectly understand Amsterdam being the diamond mart of the world; but one cannot imagine an Amsterdamer ruining himself to buy a parure for some fair woman’s caprice; or an Amsterdamess jeopardising her immortal soul to secure some special jewel. One no more expects it than one expects the Jews, who are the art dealers and bijou connoisseurs of the world, to be the producers of these same articles. Not that one thinks the less of them on that account. Artists and romancists and subjects of the grand passion, though no doubt adding to the joy of nations, make indifferent folk to live with; the sturdy man of business and the shrewd and kindly citizen might be a deal better for everyday use—and most lives consist principally of such usings. In Amsterdam one can perfectly understand the famous struggle with Spain and some of the difficulties of the Boer War. But one cannot help feeling that, just as the French Revolution and the ’45 are not in the nature of the people, neither are the ways and doings of Renaissance Italy.

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