ATTENTION has been focused on the county of Lincoln by
the holding of a Royal Show, after a seven years' interval, in its capital. The Ministry of Agriculture has devoted a whole number of its journal to the county. As all good topographers know, one large division is called Holland, and it is the western end of a valley of which the eastern is Holland proper. This geographic unity has never been so well, or beautifully, marked as in recent years. If anyone wishes to see acre upon acre of tulips in full glory, he could satisfy his thirst for colour as well in the sand-and-silt district of Lincolnshire as at Haarlem or Delft. In one regard the English view is superior to the Dutch. The growers, responding to English fashion, have tended to specialise, for the sale both of bulbs and cut flowers, on so-called Darwin tulips which in general are " sells " or single-coloured. They have, of course, no connection with Charles Darwin. A grower wanted a special name for the Gesnerian tulip, and thought Darwin, perhaps with a view to the English market, as good as any other name.
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