MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 213 



Thus the inlluence of horticulture, your choseu occupation, will expand 

 and extend to future generations; and though you may not accumulate 

 wealth by the millio^is, you will hive the Sitisfaction of knowing that 

 jou have worked for the good of your country and your fellow-men. 



A. W. St. John, Carthage, Mo. 



DUTCH BULBS. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



There are two classes of Howering plants — Hardy Perennials, and 

 the so-called "Dutch Bulbs" — which I think are far too little known, 

 ^nd hence too little appreciated by our people in general — the former 

 because, or at least partly because, they generally require two or three 

 jears to become of blooming size, just as some so-called farmers never 

 plant fruit-trees, much less nuts, because they can't look ahead more 

 than one year at a time for a crop ; and the latter class, because it 

 •seems so difficult for the average floricultural mind to accept the neces- 

 sity of planting in the fall. 



As the subject of "Hardy Bulbs" has been assigned me for this 

 paper, and I am well aware that the subject is, by a large majority, 

 greater than the writer, I will try my best when treating of Tulips, to 

 keep the grand perennial Poppies out of my mind, or at least off of the 

 paper, and to not allow the beautiful Hemerocalis to usurp the place 

 belonging to the belles of the Canadense lily. 



I use the term Hardy Bulbs in its larger sense of including such 

 tubers, and also "corms" or " bulbo-tubers," as succeed best by fall 

 planting. Most catalogues use the term loosely, and, indeed, the dis- 

 tinction is more technical than material, consisting merely in the fact 

 that a bulb proper consists of layers, either concentric like an onion, 

 or of scales, like a lily ; while a corm, or bulbo-tuber, is a solid mass 

 of the same shape, like a crocus or gladiolus, and a tuber is more of a 

 Heshy consistency, like a sweet-potato, dahlia, or anemone ; and they 

 are called Dutch or Holland bulbs, simply because the growing of 

 them in great quantities for commercial purposes began in and was 

 for a long time confined almost exclusively to that country. 



But if I continue thus, my preface, as is sometimes asserted of a 

 woman's postscript, will be the larger portion of this paper. Let me 

 only add, then, that I propose, in treating the subject, to try to do two 

 things — first, by avoiding technical and scientific terms and too great 

 particularity in directions for planting and culture, to avoid creating 



