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The Tulip
Festival
by W.Holidays
 What
do windmills, wooden shoes, pea soup, and tulips all have in common?
Why, the Dutch of course. The Netherlands host one of the most
beautiful festivals of spring, The Tulip Festival. Imagine roaming
through millions of brightly colored, perfectly formed tulips. The
festival was created to promote this national treasure and lasts for
two weeks beginning the last week of April. The one day everybody is
out and about is on Bulb Sunday. The Sunday right in the middle of the
two weeks is the biggest day for the festival with contests and flower
sales.
Although tulips are a national symbol for the Dutch, they actually
originated in central Asia and the Near East. The Turks were
cultivating tulips as early as 1,000 AD. In their native setting,
tulips grow in high elevations in the mountains covered with a blanket
of snow. It's curious that tulips thrive in Holland, it's flat,
at sea level, and the winters are extremely wet. The tulips do so well
because the Dutch devised a clever winter drainage system for the soil
that keeps the bulbs in a constant comfortable environment.
How did they get the name tulip?
One theory is that the
tulip resembles the turban worn in the Middle East. Turban was written at
toliban, when translated into Latin it became tulipa.
 Tulips
were first introduced to the Dutch in 1593 by botanist Carolus Clusius.
Clusius was the head botanist of the botanical garden or "hortus" at
the University of Leiden. However, Clusius was not a sharing sort of
man and refused vehemently to give or even sell bulbs to interested
individuals. However, some people knew that these bulbs would be a
profitable investment, and so, late one night a group of these
"entrepreneurs" paid an unexpected visit to the garden and helped
themselves to some bulbs.
Tulips became a status symbol and the wealthy and upper middle class
bought them like crazy. Bulbs were highly expensive as much $1500 in
today's market. Tulipomania began (1634-1637), a term used to describe
a period in history when tulip crazed individuals invested huge amounts
of money in tulip bulbs. In 1634, a collector in the Netherlands paid
1,000 pounds of cheese, four oxen, eight pigs, 12 sheep, a bed, and a
suit of clothes for a single bulb of the Viceroy tulip.
Striped tulips were favored over solid colors, the same is true today.
Striped tulips were actually infected with a virus and are not allowed
to be cultivated today. However, you can still buy beautiful variegated
and striped tulips thanks to selective breeding. These plants are
completely healthy.
Today, tulips are the major flower crop in Holland. Each year
approximately 3-billions bulbs are produced. Two-thirds are exported
and one-third remains in Holland. The United States is one of the top
importers.
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modified
April 23, 2008 |
