Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/34

 26 TULA was the father of the progenitors of the three principal tribes. TULA. I. A central government of Kussia, bordering on Moscow, Riazan, Tambov, Orel, and Kaluga; area, 11,955 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 1 167,878. The surface is generally flat, most important rivers are the Oka, Upa, and Don, the two latter of which are connected by the Ivanovska canal, which forms part of the system that unites the Baltic, Black, and Cas- pian seas. The soil is fertile, and about two thirds of the surface is cultivated. Iron and woollen and linen goods are manufactured. II. A city, capital of the government, on the Upa, 107 m. S. of Moscow ; pop. in 1867, 58,- 150. It has an extensive cannon foundery and manufactory of arms, established by Peter the Great, and upward of 800 private firearms and cutlery workshops. TULARE, a S. E. county of California, ex- tending from the summit of the Sierra Ne- vada on the northeast to the summit of the Monte Diablo range on the southwest, and drained by Kern river and several streams that flow into Tulare lake ; area, 5,600 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 4,533, of whom 99 were Chi- nese. Tulare lake, over 30 m. long and about 20 m. wide, is in the S. W. part. Its valley is fertile. Some gold is found, but the mines are little developed. Agriculture and grazing are the chief pursuits. The Visalia division of the Central Pacific and the Tulare division of the Southern Pacific railroad traverse it. The chief productions in 1870 were 53,605 bushels of wheat, 9,750 of Indian corn, 85,110 of barley, 8,685 of potatoes, 660,645 Ibs. of wool, 37,490 of butter, and 4,419 tons of hay. There were 4,590 horses, 36,167 cattle, 147,- 301 sheep, and 15,403 swine; 3 flour mills, and 3 saw mills. Capital, Visalia. TULIP (Pers. thulyban; written tulipan by the old authors, and Latinized as tulipa), a genus of plants of the lily family, of which numerous cultivated forms are derived from several distinct species, all natives of the old world. They have a coated bulb, from which appears in spring a one- to three-leaved stem, terminated by a single, erect, large, showy flower ; the six parts of the flower are sepa- rate, broad, and not spreading ; six stamens with erect anthers, and a triangular ovary, with sessile stigmas, which ripens into a simi- larly shaped, three-celled, and many-seeded pod. The garden, florists', show, or late tulips, as they are variously called, are from tulipa Gesneriana, the species being named in honor of Gesner, who described the plant in 1559 from specimens raised from seed sent from the Levant ; the stems are taller than in any other species (about 30 in.), with the divisions of the flower very obtuse, and in the wild state marked with yellow and violet. The cultivation of this plant rapidly spread in the Netherlands, and almost innumerable varieties were obtained from seed ; that country is still the centre of the culture of this and many other bulbs, and TULIP supplies the rest of the world. About the middle of the 17th century the tulip became the object of a remarkable commercial excite- ment or mania, and the bulbs were bought and sold at such enormous prices (the equivalent of $6,000 was paid for a single bulb) that the government was forced to limit the price for any one bulb to 200 francs ; these extraordi- nary sales were not always real, with a trans- fer of the bulb, but they served to speculate upon, like stocks in the exchange. So great has been the change in popular taste that at present, in this country at least, it is very rare to see a bed of choice named varieties of show tulips. The fanciers make several classes, the principal of which are : bybloemens, in which the flowers have a white ground broken with various shades of purple and other colors ; bizarres, with a yellow ground, variegated with other colors ; Baguets, with the flowers white at base and broken with rich brown; incomparable Verports, with cherry or rose ground, white bottoms, and marked with shi- ning brown. Breeders are bulbs raised from seed which are at first selfs, or all of one color, without any variegation whatever ; by contin- uous cultivation they finally " break," or be- come variegated, the time varying from one to 20 years, and even at the end of the longer period the result may be worthless. These late tulips bloom in the northern states about the last of May, but there is a set of varie- ties which bloom three weeks earlier. These are from T. suareolens of southern Europe, with stems less than a foot high, and acute petals ; one of the most u a i U6d ,r f tb iT " Early Tulip, Due Van ThoL " Due Van Thol," usu- ally red bordered with yellow, and presenting several subvarieties. There is a long list of named early sorts, from pure white to dark violet, with innumerable variegations ; there are also double varieties of these, which are not pleasing singly, but planted in clumps make brilliant masses of color. The parrot tulips are varieties or crosses of T. Turcica, from Turkey; they are of dwarf habit, the petals curved and fantastically fringed, and colored with yellow, red, and a large admix- ture of green ; the form and coloring readily suggest the popular name. A few species, lit- tle if any changed by cultivation, are some- times seen in gardens; among these are T. cornuta, with singularly attenuated petals, 71 oculis soils, vermilion, with a deep violet (called black) eye, and others. The bulbs are import- ed each autumn in large quantities from Hol- land. A perfect and mature bulb contains a well developed bud, which the next spring will