the tulips were worth their weight in gold would be a very
small story. It would not be a very great exaggeration to say that they
were worth their size in diamonds. The most valuable species of all was
named "Semper Augustus," and a bulb of it which weighed 200 perits, or
less than half an ounce avoirdupois, was thought cheap at 5,500 florins.
A florin may be called about 40 cents; so that the little brown root was
worth $2,200, or 220 gold eagles, which would weigh, by a rough
estimate, eight pounds four ounces, or 132 ounces avoirdupois. Thus this
half ounce Semper Augustus was worth--I mean he would bring--two hundred
and sixty-four times his weight in gold!

There were many cases where people invested whole fortunes equal to
$40,000 or $50,000 in collections of forty or fifty tulip roots. Once
there happened to be only two Semper Augustuses in all Holland, one in
Haarlem and one in Amsterdam. The Haarlem one was sold for twelve acres
of building lots, and the Amsterdam one for a sum equal to $1,840,00,
together with a new carriage, span of grey horses and double harness,
complete.

Here is the list of merchandise and estimated prices given for one root
of the Viceroy tulip. It is interesting as showing what real merchandise
was worth in those days by a cash standard, aside from its exhibition of
tremendous speculative bedlamism:

160 bushels wheat $179,20
320 bushels rye 223,20
Four fat oxen 192,00
Eight fat hogs 96,00
Twelve fat sheep 48,00
Two hogsheads wine 28,00
Four tuns beer 12,80
Two tuns butter 76,80
1000 lbs. cheese 48,00
A bed all complete 40,00
One suit clothes 32,00
A silver drinking cup 24,00
---------
Total exactly $1,000,00

In 1636, regular tulip exchanges were established in the nine Dutch
towns where the largest tulip business was done, and while the gambling
was at its intensest, the matter was managed exactly as stock gambling
is managed in Wall street to-day. You went out into "the street" without
owning a tulip or a perit of a tulip in the world, and met another
fellow with just as many tulips as yourself. You talk and "banter" with
him, and finally (we will suppose) you "sell short" ten Semper
Augustuses, "seller three," for $2,000 each, in all $20,000. Thi