DUTCH ODDITIES 49

beds. At last this taste, growing to a fancy, then to
an ambition, became a mania. The same thing would
now be called “tulip on the brain.” Everybody had

 

°
“Ho! HO! I THOUGHT HER LITTLE TULIP-BULB WAS AN ONION,
AND 1 SWALLOWED IT!”

 

 

it—old, young, rich, and poor. One rich man at Haarlem
gave half of his fortune for a single root. By the year
1635, persons were known to invest 100,000 florins? for
thirty or forty roots. A tulip of the species Admiral Lief-
ken sold for 4400 florins. The Semper Augustus easily
brought 2000 florins. And one superb specimen of the
Semper Augustus actually sold for 13,000  florins,— or
5200 dollars. At one time there were but two roots of
this variety in Holland; one belonged to a gentleman
of Haarlem, the other to a trader in Amstetdam. Both
of these were eagerly sought for by infatuated tulip-men.

1A Dutch florin is equal to about forty cents in United States currency.
4