The flower that nearly ruined a country
Imagine paying thousands of dollars for a flower that hasn’t even grown
yet! That’s what many people did about 300 years ago in the Netherlands.
Tulips were new to the country, which was called Holland at the time.
And rich people were willing to pay lots of money to have tulips in
their gardens. Tulips grow from underground buds called bulbs. Many
Dutch people saw a chance to make money by selling tulip bulbs.
It takes three to seven years to raise tulip bulbs from seeds. And some
people didn’t want to wait that long. They wanted money right away, and
so they began to sell bulbs before they had them. Tulip bulb growers
would sell some bulbs they didn’t yet have to others for thousands of
dollars in Dutch money. Those people would then sell the bulbs they
didn’t yet have to others for twice as much.
Tulip bulb prices went higher and higher. Some people even sold their
houses to get money to buy tulip bulbs to sell. People traded valuable
things for tulip bulbs. One time, a single tulip bulb was sold for 4
cows, 8 pigs, 12 sheep, 2 barrels of butter, 1,000 pounds (450
kilograms) of cheese, 2 big barrels of wine, 4 barrels of beer, 2
wagonloads of wheat, a bed, a suit of clothes, and a large silver cup.
Suddenly, people became afraid to spend so much on tulip bulbs. Prices
dropped. People who had bought tulip bulbs couldn’t sell them. Many
people lost all their money. Others lost their houses. The country of
Holland was nearly ruined by tulips.
tulip bulbs
A bulb is an underground bud. The leaves and stem of a tulip grow
right out of the bulb.
