The mania grew to such a pass that all Europe was laughing at it.  Bulbs of the favorite tulips of the rarer varieties rose to fabulous prices; some constituted a fortune; like a house, an orchard, or a mill; one bulb was equivalent to a dowry for the daughter of a rich family; for one bulb were given, in I know not what city, two carts of grain, four carts of barley, four oxen, twelve sheep, two casks of wine, four casks of beer, a thousand pounds of cheese, a complete dress, and silver goblet.  Another bulb of a tulip named “Semper Augustus” was bought at the price of thirteen thousand florins.  A bulb of the “Admiral Enkhuysen” tulip cost two thousand dollars.  One day there were only two bulbs of the “Semper Augustus” left in Holland, one at Amsterdam and the other at Haarlem, and for one of them there were offered, and refused, four thousand six hundred florins, a splendid coach, and a pair of gray horses with beautiful harness.  Another offered twelve acres of land, and he also was refused.  On the registers of Alkmaar it is recorded that in 1637 there were sold in that city, at public auction, one hundred and twenty tulips for the benefit of the orphanage, and that the sale produced one hundred and eighty thousand francs.

Then they began to traffic in tulips, as in State bonds and shares.  They sold for enormous sums bulbs which they did not possess, engaging to provide them for a certain day; and in this way a traffic was carried on for a much larger number of tulips than the whole of Holland could furnish.  It is related that one Dutch town sold twenty millions of francs’ worth of tulips, and that an Amsterdam merchant gained in this trade more than sixty-eight thousand florins in the space of four months.  These sold that which they had not, and those that which they never could have; the market passed from hand to hand, the differences were paid, and the flowers for and by which so many people were ruined or enriched, flourished only in the imagination of the traffickers.  Finally matters arrived at such a pass that, many buyers having refused to pay the sums agreed upon, and contests and disorders following, the government decreed that these debts should be considered as ordinary obligations, and that payment should be exacted in the usual legal manner; then prices fell suddenly, as low as fifty florins for the “Semper Augustus,” and the scandalous traffic ceased.

Now the culture of flowers is no longer a mania, but is carried on for love of them, and Haarlem is the principal temple.  She still provides a great part of Europe and South America with flowers.  The city is encircled by gardens, which, toward the end of April and the beginning of May, are covered with myriads of tulips, hyacinths, carnations, auriculas, anemones, ranunculuses, camelias, primroses, and other flowers, forming an immense wreath about Haarlem, from which travelers from all parts of the world gather a bouquet in passing.  Of late years the hyacinth has risen into great honor; but the tulip is still king of the gardens, and Holland’s supreme affection.