Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1884 — Flowers and the Tulip Mania in Holland. [ARTICLE]

Flowers and the Tulip Mania in Holland.

The Dutch claim to have done more than any other nation in the advancement of horticulture, and while they are not engaged*so extensively in it now as formerly, there are the finest of flowers to be seen anywhere, hyacinths and tulips being the favorites. The Dutch delight in these flowers at one time took the form of a mania, and speculators in bulbs gambled in them with as great a zest as a grain speculator does now. A little over two hundred years ago this gambling assumed enormous proportions, and immense fortunes were won and lost through the medium of tulip bulbs. It is on record that one single bulb was sold for 13,000 florins, and that it was a matter of frequent occurrence for bulbs to run as high as 4,000 and 5,000 florins for moderately rare ones. Everybody caught the fever. Merchants, capitalists, and private individuals, even though they had not the slightest knowledge of horticluture, went into the speculation with the greatest fervor, and enormous fortunes were amassed and lost in very short time. It is said that a little town in the neighborhood of Haarlem made over ten million of florins in one year by the sale of tulip bulbs. Although that was long ago, and the mania was of short duration, the Dutch of to-day have not lost the fondness for flowers that has always characterized the nation. Go where yon will and you will see rare flowers. —Toledo Blade.