Miseel'l'aneous-^ f 223 



)ear, scarcely one is grown in this country. Our uneven winters, made 

 up of alternate cold and warm spells, start a growth before the spring 

 lias really set in, and the bulb is weakened by getting its leaves frost- 

 bitten. Then our summers arc hot and dry, a condition that does not 

 favor the development of the bulb for next season during the month 

 of growth after blooming. So our florists do not try to grow their own 

 bulbs, but import them from Holland, where soil and climate are just 

 right to enable her to produce the world's supply. Travelers in Holland 

 write that their trains run for miles through a country that is one vast 

 bed of blooming hyacinths and tulips. 



The careful Dutch gardener will take a well grown hyacinth and 

 cut off a considerable part of the base and transverse to the layers. 

 When planted, numerous small bulbs will develop in the part hollowed ' 

 out, and when he takes up the plant in the summer the old bulb has been 

 about absorbed by the young bulbs. For three years these young roots are • 

 taken up in the early summer, given a rest in a dry loft and put out. 

 again in the fall, before they are large enough for sale, and if he is after- 

 producing fancy bulbs that will bring immense spikes or blooms he lets; 

 them grow a year or two longer still. If he desires to originate a fine 

 new variety he will plant the seed, wait four or five years for them to 

 bloom, select the one that pleases him most, and then work some ten or 

 fifteen years before he can from that one bulb grow enough to put upon 

 the market. So you see that not only is the American climate not equal 

 to the Dutch for these plants, but the American temperament has not 

 the patience to wait so long for results. 



Although our climate is not adapted to develop these bulbs, still 

 when we buy them already grown there is no flower more sure to give 

 satisfactory results. And why? Because when we buy the bulb the 

 flower is already there inclosed within its heart just as a peach is hidden 

 away in the winter peach buds. All we have to do is to give moisture, 

 warmth and light. No care we can bestow will that season add one 

 bloom to the number that is infolded in the center. Nourishment or 

 fertility are not essential, for the little stored-away bloom will feed on the 

 bulky tissues of the bulb surrounding it; and so you can get as fine 

 results from a hyacinth or narcissus by simply putting it in a glass of 

 water, as if you had planted it in the richest soil. 



One reason why these spring blooming plants, narcissus, hyacinths 

 and tulips, yield more pleasure than most flowers, is that they come so 

 soon after the bleak winter, when our hearts are hungry for these children 

 of beauty, far ahead of the gay procession of other garden flowers ; and 

 the beds are often in full bloom before killing frosts have stopped pay- 



