I
HYACINTH CULTURE AT HAARLEM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
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 about forty years in cultivation on a soil which seemed particularly adapted for the purpose,—a fine upper stratum of grey sand, superposed by the action of the sea on a thin subsoil of peat, so that Nature prepared, it seems, many thousand years in advance to produce the delicately-tinted and exquisitely-scented flower, which rises as if by magic out of the cold earth in a few weeks’ space.
One well-named variety, “Sceptre of David,” reminds one of the long moral preparation of one people chosen out of the nations of the earth (a stiff soil to work), before the long-desired of the hills should come, when there should come a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower should rise up out of his root.
If there are “correspondences” in the material and spiritual worlds, the flower that cometh up in a day has its root in the ages.
The hyacinth is one of the most perfect results of man’s Art—Art, for Saint-Simon is persuaded that the hyacinth has become what it is principally through cultivation, and without human patience and perseverance—if nature had been left entirely alone—a much less pleasing and exquisite flower would have appeared.
Every year new varieties are developed, and hope springs eternal in the breast of the cultivator. Haarlem, the Paradise of Flowers, may be especially described as the home of the hyacinth.
Upon his arrival at Haarlem, the stranger is so dazzled with the spectacle of the wonderful and brilliantly coloured carpet spread before his eyes, that he does not at first realise there is yet further joy to be found in the singular beauty of certain species and varieties taken individually.
There he sees acres of hyacinths, double and single, in uninterrupted ranges of pure colour; the only intervals between the rows being the little grey sand paths, to enable the cultivator to reach the flowers.