Ugly Darwins A gardener, as brave as he is learned,
has dared to maintain' that the Darwin tulip—which is much the most popular of all—is ugly. He finds other faults : -it is liable to disease; it is short-lived except in a decadent state ; it is stiff and formal. This verdict has been inspired by the spectacle of cottage tulips in the humble gardens of the southern counties ; and his pulpit is the Sussex County Magazine, which maintains • its county supremacy in literature and in art. Cottage tulips are a race. They are very English though descended probably,- like some of our people, from Spanish ancestors of the sixteenth. century. They have stamina and their variations tend to compose delightful combinations of colour. They begin to: return to favour and are specially bred in many of the newer tulip farms, for example, those of the Wisbech Bulb Company. The great merit of the Darwin, if it is a merit, is size ; but size and beauty are not necessarily correlated and some of our flowers—such as dahlias, African marigolds, zinnias, calceolarias and others are ruined (like the under jaw of the show bulldog or the legs of a foxhound) by size and nothing else. At any rate, though we maintain our admiration for Darwins, we may all wish extended popularity .to the cottage tulip.
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