"Not one of Flora's brilliant race A form more perfect can display; Art could not feign more simple grace, Nor Nature take a line away.

- Montgomery.

To cultivate a hobby is not generally to make a fortune - and even a fair amount of fame is not always attainable. But, on the contrary, a considerable degree of ridicule more frequently falls to the share of those whose whims and fancies do not quite accord with our own, and which, with but very few exceptions, each one of the human family is so intent on carrying out his own hobby, in a lesser or greater degree, with all the ardour and perseverance worthy of a greater work. We are too ready to censure and ridicule our neighbour for the zeal he displays in overcoming an obstacle in the way to the end he has in view - the carrying out his own ideal - at the same time forgetful of the equally extravagant fancy of our own adoption.

Parson Gilpin's neighbours could see nothing to admire so very much in his bed of Tulips, and wondered why he bestowed so much care and attention on so frivolous an object. It was the parson's hobby, and he carried it out with a right good will, regardless of the criticisms of those whose hobby would perhaps prove far more expensive and absurd than his own. Very likely the good man raised his own seedlings, and consequently escaped an item of expense not always within the compass of a parson's purse. However that might be, history does not record the fact, and we are left to presume that he did; and if he did not, he would assuredly neglect one of the greatest charms that floriculture can bestow on the amateur florist; for if one branch of floriculture more than another is calculated to afford a greater amount of pleasure to the ardent cultivator, it is that which is offered in the production of seminal varieties.

The Auricula, Pink, Carnation, Picotee, and other florist flowers, have each its own admirers, and its own field for operation, and have all made rapid strides of improvement, under the hand of the skilful hybridiser, within the last twenty years; and, notwithstanding, there remains abundant scope for the persevering and enterprising votary before he arrives at the point where improvement is unattainable. To the Tulip this remark is especially applicable - there being abundant scope for improvement, and but few, comparatively, earnestly intent on carrying it on. And the reason seems apparent when we take into account the length of time it requires to test the produce of a pod of seed. The planting year after year, for five and very frequently for six successive years, of the little bulb, and the consequent care and attention this entails before one bloom rewards the patience of the raiser of them, is doubtless the bar to the commencement of raising seedlings by so many of the Tulip's best cultivators and warmest admirers.

Could I but point out a way - a royal road - by means of which the zenith could be attained in a single year, these stray notes might possibly be pronounced worthy of the space they occupy; and the complaint would then very speedily be without foundation, in the fact that the Tulip is far behind its compeers in properties and attractions. Every grower might then be induced to try his "'prentice hand," and we should soon have abundant proof of the advancement the flower is capable of.

But as I cannot promise the knowledge of this royal road, I may perhaps be allowed to mention the attempts of a London nurseryman, some fifty years ago, to hasten on the growth of seedling bulbs generally, by what might be termed an artificial method - namely, sowing the seed as soon as ripe, and not suffering the young plants to die down at the end of a season, but applying stimulants, and allowing only short intervals of rest, thus giving the bulbs three or four seasons of growth in two years, by this means attaining the object in view.

Seeing a notice of this new method induced me in 1840 to make an autumnal sowing of Tulip-seed; but I failed entirely in producing germination until the following year, when the young plants appeared at the same time as those sown six months later; and I never afterwards made a second attempt, but contented myself with the old plodding system, requiring a little more patience, and have now each succeeding May some new breeders as a reward for my labour.

The last season of 1868 was, beyond every previous one in my experience, the best for obtaining large quantities of well-matured seed; so that, if the amateur can be said to make his fortune by his hobby, he surely had it in his own hands, had he embraced the opportunity afforded by such a fine year of brightness and splendour. Whether under an awning - where the Tulip will rarely perfect its seed - or on the open bed, the result was the same. Seed could be obtained for the mere trouble of allowing the pod to ripen; and hundreds of young plants an inch or two in length in early autumn bore ample testimony to the quality of the seed. To place the usual glass protector over the ripening pod was not at all necessary to keep out the wet and to retain the heat; for the heat was most excessive, and the wet most ardently longed for all the time the pods were maturing, and never fell. The consequence is, a finer sample of seed could not possibly be desired - so bright and full, and with the promise of every seed germinating.

So there are doubtless some grand specimens in embryo, to appear in some future year, to delight and gratify the fortunate possessor, and place his name side by side with Clarke, Lawrence, and Goldham, who were all successful in their day; or, later, with Gibbons, noted for his batch of Chellastons; with Mr Headley of Stapleford, who can outnumber so many of his compeers in new and beautiful varieties of his own raising; and with Mr Storer of Derby, whose superb Bizarres are the admiration of every grower of a bed of Tulips.

The parents of this justly-esteemed batch of seedlings were Gibbons's Pilot crossed wdth Shakespeare; and the colours of the progeny lean, in some to one parent, and in some to the other. But to compare them with either would be giving but a very faint idea of the beauty of the offspring. All are so great an improvement on the parent stock that comparison would fall infinitely short of the mark. I might enumerate a score or more of these beautiful Bizarres, could I only give them each a name, which the raiser unfortunately neglected to do in so many instances, and left them entirely to the fancy of future growers for the mere chance of one to distinguish them by. So, like the Chellastons, which were ushered into the world some thirty years before them, producing, in the words of our dear old respected friend Fred Wood of the Coppice, "confusion worse confounded," so truthfully applied by him to the Chellastons. You had only to forward your order to the fortunate raiser, with a draft for the amount, to be convinced of the fact; for in the most generous manner possible would he pay attention to your requirements by packing you off, in one parcel, breeders and broke flowers, flowering roots and offsets, leaving it to yourself to supply the lacking nomenclature he was so sadly regardless of.

I find want of space compels me to leave the description of a few of these beautiful seedlings for a future paper. Omicron.

April 1869.