226 Stale Horticultural Society. 



the seed begins to form in the dried flowers, strip them off, but leave the 

 stalk so that the nourishment in it may be absorbed by the bulb. All of 

 the catalouges say that you may leave the bulbs in the ground from year to 

 year. I can't see why they give such directions unless they wish you to be 

 without bulbs in about two years and come back to them to buy. No, if 

 you wish to continue the beds in undiminished beauty, you must carefully 

 dig them up with a garden fork when the leaves begin to turn yellow, and 

 spread them out thin in some dry loft. When the tops are thoroughly 

 dry, you may pull them off the bulbs and put the latter away in paper 

 sacks. Thus they get their needed rest. In the now vacant beds, which 

 would be unsightly on the lawn, you may have ready and transplant asters, 

 petunias or cosmos. 



This annual lifting is not so imperative in the case of the narcissus, 

 which may remain undisturbed until, by multiplication, they become too 

 thick. Planted in wooded lawns they will take care of themselves for 

 years. All through the South you will find, among the shrubbery on old 

 plantations, clumps of them that have been there undisturbed for 50 years 

 or more. In England, which is peculiarly adapted to the narcissus, this is 

 done till they are regarded as wild flowers. Wordsworth, in a beautiful 

 little poem, gives us an idea of such, a wild plantation by the side of one of 

 his northern lakes. 



With the hyacinth, especially, the size of the bulb will have to be con- 

 sidered, for there are all sizes, priced according to size. What sized bulb 

 shall you buy? A fully grown bulb will cost from ten to fifteen cents 

 apiece, and while they give much larger spikes for one or two years, at 

 the end of that time they will disintegrate into several smaller bulbs that 

 will give smaller bloom spikes. If these should not be taken up and sep- 

 arated, you have come to the end of your hyacinths, but if you take care 

 of them it will be a matter of interest and pride to see the spike and bulb 

 grow larger each season, and in two or three years you will have instead 

 of one large bulb five or six large ones. If you should buy a smaller 

 bulb, it will continue to grow larger for a number of years before disin- 

 tegration. Although our climate is not the best for the culture of these 

 bulbs, still I have grown as fine as I have ever bought. I started with a few 

 dozen bulbs five years ago, and when I dug them up last June I must have 

 had a barrel, the most of which I sold at good prices. 



Of the summer blooming bulbs, the only one of great decorative 

 value to the lawn is the gladiolus. Unlike the spring bloomers, this is an 

 American bulb. Childs, a New York nurseryman, is one of the greatest 

 growers in the world. He has two hundred acres planted to them. His 

 strain of gladioli known as the Childsi, is famous throughout the world. 



