Wednesday, Apr. 6, 2005

Behold the tulip mania

By CAROLYN CARY
ccary@TheCitizenNews.com

If you lived in Holland about the year 1635 and had in your possession four tons of wheat, eight tons of rye, one bed, four oxen, eight pigs, 12 sheep, a suit of clothes, two casks of wine, four tons of beer, two dons of butter, a thousand pounds of cheese, and one silver drinking cup, you could purchase one, yes one, tulip bulb. Such was the tulip bulb craze at that time. In today’s value, this cache would be worth $35,000.

The name “tulip” comes from the area it was first hybridized in the 1500s, Turkey. The flower could be found in the gardens of the Turkish sultans. The name is derived from the Turkish word for “turban” because that is what people thought the tulip flowers resembled. It is widely believed that Turks could have been cultivating tulips as early as 1000 A.D.

It is believed the first tulip bulbs from Constantinople were carried to Holland and Germany by Conrad Gestner. It did not take long for people to fall in love with them and tulip bulbs soon became a status symbol for the wealthy, just as in Turkey. The flowers were not only beautiful but difficult to get.

It did not take long in Holland for speculators to get involved.

By 1636 tulips were established on the Amsterdam stock exchange. Popular interest had shifted from hobbyists and collectors to speculators and gamblers. A trading frenzy began and at its peak, a single bulb might bring the equivalent of over $76,000. Unfortunately people from all walks of life liquidated homes and estates at low prices to speculate in tulip trading.

It did not take too many weeks for the tulip market to weaken and the market to crash by 90 percent. The Dutch government made a feeble attempt to handle the matter but could not stabilize the decline. It reached a point that Amsterdam judges unanimously refused to honor tulip contracts, regarding them as gambling activities.

At this point, a tulip bulb that had been purchased for, say, $76,000 was now worth one dollar.

In viewing a painting by an Old Dutch master you might notice that there may only be one or two tulips in the composition. Due to the cost of a single flower, painters often shared a blossom, or even a painting of a single blossom.

Currently over nine billion flower bulbs are produced each year in Holland, with about seven billion of them being exported. The export value amounts to three quarters of a billion dollars.

According to the Netherlands Flower Bulk Information Center, the United States is the biggest import of Dutch bulbs. In a recent year, $130 million worth of bulbs (wholesale value) were imported.

The proper planting procedures for tulips vary with location.

Contact the Fayette County Extension Service for expert advise. It can be reached at 770-460-5730, ext. 5412. Or, visit www.admin.co.fayette.ga.us/, click at the top left on Departments, and then come down the left column to Extension Service.

If you are interested in attending the Holland Tulip Festival in April, 2006, a pre-reservation is suggested.

The event is April 20-28 and begins Thursday, April 20, with arrival in Amsterdam. Among the activities that can take place is a visit to a diamond factory. You can also travel by coach to the bulk field are of Holland where the Flower Parade will be a must-see. On the way back you can visit at the open air museum at Zaanse Schans where you can see the windmills and old wooden houses.

A trip north to the village of Marken might be on your agenda, where you can see a former fisherman’s village. Not only are there more windmills to present a “photo op” but the people still wear the traditional Dutch costumes. A visit to Aalsmeer flower auction, the world’s largest flower auction, could be on your agenda for Monday.

Another item you might want to coordinate with your travel planner is traveling through the multi-colored fields on the way to visit the Keukenhof Exhibition, where a 70-acre estate is planted with 6 million bulbs. A stop in Gouda can be planned with its beautiful gothic Town Hall dating from 1450. While here you can see how the famous cheese of the same name is produced.

A visit to Holland would not be complete with a visit to The Hague, where you can see the houses of Parliament, Queen Beatrix’s working palace, and the Carnegie’s Peace Palace.

On your way back you can stop off in Delft, where the famous porcelain is made. A visit to the factory is a must.

All of this can be arranged by your travel agent.