DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS

PAINTED BY
MIMA NIXON

DESCRIBED BY
UNA SILBERRAD AND SOPHIE LYALL

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1909

TO

MY DEAREST FRIEND

GERTRUDE CROFTON

IN MEMORY OF HAPPY DAYS SPENT IN HOLLAND

WHICH WE SAW TOGETHER FOR

THE FIRST TIME

MIMA NIXON.

PREFACE

     Miss NIXON wishes me to present her humble duty and thanks to Her Majesty, the Queen of the Netherlands, for graciously honouring her with the permission to make drawings of Her Majesty's Summer Palace and Gardens at Het Loo.

     Miss Nixon also wishes me to thank His Excellency Baron Sistema van Grövestins for his kindness in procuring for her tile privilege of access to the Royal Gardens at Her Loo, and to thank the Rt. Hon. Sir Horace Rumbold, Bart., P.C., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., for his kind help.

     Her thanks are also due to Mr. W. H. Wind, Her Majesty's Head Gardener at Her Loo; to Miss van der Laan, Bennebroek; and to Messrs. Tubergen, Kersten, Krelager, Roozen, and the other growers at Haarlem.

     I wish to thank Mr. Thomas Hoog of Haarlem, who helped me in the compiling of the following pages by supplying much valuable information, which I trust I have not too greatly mishandled.

UNA L. SILBERRAD.

March l, 1909.

CONTENTS

BY UNA L. SILBERRAD

CHAPTER I: ON GETTING THERE

CHAPTER II: CROCUS AND EARLY SPRING FLOWERS

CHAPTER III: HYACINTH OR IRIS?

CHAPTER IV: SOME OLD FAVOURITES AND NEW

CHAPTER V: THE ARISTOCRAT OF THE BULB GARDENS

CHAPTER VI: BULB BARNS, NAMES, AND GROWERS

APPENDICES

BY SOPHIE LYALL

I

HYACINTH CULTURE AT HAARLEM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

II

THE TULIP TRADE, FROM DE KONING'S "HISTORY OF HAARLEM" (1635)

III

THE HYACINTH TRADE, FROM DE KONING'S "TAFEREEL DER STAD HAARLEM" (1808)

INDEX.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS