HOLLAND-IN-ENGLAND

Evening Star, Issue 20057, 24 December 1928, Page 9

HOLLAND-IN-ENGLAND

TULIP-TIME BEAUTY IN THE BULB FIELDS

'There is a little HoJland-in-Englaiid where the characteristics of the Dutch Netherlands are so closely reproduced that a stray traveller rubs his eys and wonders if he lias inadvertently crossed the North .Sea (writes a correspondent of tho ‘ Daily Telegraph’). There are the same low green fields, bound in by dykes, the same slowly-turning windmills, the same Hat vista stretching to the horizon. The very people met on the way smack of the Hollander, with their slow gait ■ and broad, drawling speech. On the map, indeed, you wil find the district marked as “Holland.” We were motoring from Peterborough over to Boston when we came ‘upon the most striking evidence • for believing we had strayed out of England. Suddenly, without the slightest warning ot what to expect, we discovered the tulips. Mile unon mile of them there were, in places seeming to carpet the whole landscape in brilliant, eye-dazzling colour. Patches of scarlet, clumps of gold, dim acres of mauve. ft was tulip-time-—in England. The English tulip industry, ui spite of The competition of forced flowers from the Netherlands, is making headway, and may now be said to be holding its own. Every day a “ flower special ” leaves Spalding for London laden .vith tons of blooms. Sometimes tho total reaches as high as 100 tons in a day, which gives an idea of the extent 'and scope of the industry. Out in the fields the pickers are hard at.it.. The flowers are picked by hand, tied up in bunches, and swiftly packed into boxes, which are whirled off to tho station by motor lorries standing by. No time is wasted, and the flowers reach the metropolitan markets in a far-fresher condition than those from abroad ‘ : The English growers are producing remarkably fine specimens, which are in great demand in the cities.’ In the London parks and gardens English bulbs are being . increasingly used.