Bulb Business -- History Points To George Gibbs As The Man Who Started The Tulip Industry Here - In Whatcom, Not Skagit, County

FORTUNES BUILT ON fishing and timber diminished Washington state's natural resources. But at least one industry has contributed both riches and beauty: growing tulips, iris and daffodils.

Each year we troop to the tulip fields near La Conner, in Skagit County. But that's not where it all began. It began farther north, in Whatcom County, as shown in an exhibit at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art.

One man began it: George Gibbs, who immigrated to the U.S. from England at 17 and moved to Orcas Island. In 1883, he leased 121 acres from the county for $10 a year, to grow apples and hazelnuts. Nine years later, he invested $5 in assorted flower bulbs. When he dug them up two years later, and saw how the bulbs had multiplied, he felt like he'd struck oil. Bulb growing could be big business in Puget Sound, and no one but him knew it.

He wrote to Holland to find out about commercial bulb growing, and found that Dutch growers guarded their commercial secrets closely. One warned Gibbs that he was headed for a fall; no one could grow bulbs successfully who hadn't grown up in the business.

That got Gibbs' dander up. He packed off some of his bulbs to Holland. An impressed party of Dutch growers traveled to Orcas Island to see Gibbs and wonder at "the land which could grow bulbs equal to Holland."

In 1899 Gibbs moved his bulb stocks to the brickyard site of old Fort Bellingham. He suggested to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that raising bulbs commercially could be big business in Puget Sound. They thought he might be right.

In 1905, the USDA sent Gibbs 15,000 imported Dutch bulbs to grow under contract, as an experiment. So successful was the experiment that the USDA established a 10-acre test garden near Bellingham in 1908. The bulb industry was launched.

Early plots were small, because planting and weeding were done by hand. Farm workers dug bulbs on their knees, with a small shovel. Wages were painfully low. In his book, "History of the Flower Bulb Industry in Washington State," Charles J. Gould notes that around 1930, a friend of his in Bellingham dug bulbs by hand 10 hours a day, for $1. By 1931, many growers had begun to use modified potato diggers for the job.

The USDA station was the biggest bulb producer in the county for many years. It was the major source of flowers for the Bellingham Tulip Festival, which began in 1920.

Seattle, Vancouver and other cities took part in the annual festival, which included a flower show, ball games featuring the Bellingham Tulips, boat races, band concerts and a 5,000-person parade, with 75 floats. Airplanes dropped tulip blossoms on the crowd. The Tulip Queen was sent on tour, once to Europe, other years to Hollywood and Alaska.

The Tulip Festival ended in 1930, victim of the Depression and fierce freezes that killed bulbs in the fields. Whatcom County suffered disastrous bulb losses from freezes in 1916, 1925 and 1929. After repeated heavy losses, growers moved south to Skagit County.

These days, the only tulips in Whatcom County grow in private gardens. But the bulb industry flourishes, especially in Skagit and Pierce counties. The bulb industry is worth $12 million annually in Washington state, and some 70 million flowers are sold from the fields. The state ranks behind only Holland and Great Britain in acreage of flower bulbs.

What makes this area so successful? Good soil is only part of the answer. Cool, moist winters encourage root growth, which produces bigger, better-quality bulbs than those grown elsewhere. Relatively cool spring and summer weather helps control some diseases common in hotter places.

Washington bulbs produce bigger flowers with deeper colors than most overseas bulbs. They bloom about two weeks earlier than Dutch bulbs, which gives Washington growers a price edge.

From a start of five acres in 1900, Washington's acreage of iris, narcissus (daffodils) and tulips today stands at about 2,355 acres. In recent decades the number of growers has declined and farms have become larger.

The best bulb soils are level, well-drained sandy or silty loam with a pH range of 5.8 to 6.2. Such soil is becoming scarcer on farms. Creeping urbanization steals about 180 acres of land from the state's agriculture every year.

One recent study estimates that 35 percent of our prime agricultural soil will be lost by the year 2000. As land becomes scarcer and prices and taxes creep ever upward, some growers wonder whether there will be enough tulips 10 years from now to continue the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.

Development brings other problems in addition to higher land prices and higher taxes. Homeowners close to bulb fields complain when long-established seasonal sprays of pesticides and fertilizers drift across their properties. Normal water drainage routes are interrupted by new buildings and roads. The unchanneled water runoff often causes flooding or waterlogging of fields, and subsequent crop loss.

It's easy to see vast fields of tulips and daffodils and assume their beauty is a permanent fixture in Western Washington. The history of bulb growing in Whatcom County is a cautionary tale that, as the song says, "It Ain't Necessarily So."

Deloris Tarzan Ament is a Seattle freelance writer. Gary Settle is Pacific Magazine's picture editor. ----------------------------------------------------------------- On View

History and art are combined in "Iris, Narcissus and Tulips: The History of Bulb Growing in Whatcom and Skagit Counties," on view through July 28 at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, 121 Prospect St., Bellingham (360-676-6981). Open noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Free.