An Antique Flower
On revisiting the garden of a house that he left in 1887 a gardener found in full flower a certain pink hyacinth that lie had particular reason to remember. He knew to an inch the spot w'lere it had flourished. By an odd chance his predecessors in the house had reason to remember that the hyacinth was established there when they took the house in 1870. It is known, therefore, that this pink hyacinth bulb, from which four flower-heads were cut last week, has been producing continuously for the past sixty-nine years, and perhaps a good deal longer. How far this feat of longevity is to the credit of the original bulb, or how far to off-sets, is not open to proof ; but that history is evidence enough of the power of survival in bulbs. Once established, they are established for all time, if acts of violence are not committed. On this head one of the most beautiful paddocks I know has recently lost its carpet of wild daffodils owing to pigs which were left to mode in the meadow.
Previous page
