THE FLORIST, 77 



not intended to seed should have the stalk cut as soon as the flower 

 becomes unseemly. The ripening of the bulb, and perfecting its 

 embryo spike of buds for the next season, is a matter of some deli- 

 cacy, on which the Dutch lay great stress ; and the following is the 

 plan, as far as my memory will give it twenty-three years after date. 

 The spike being cut as soon as the bloom begins to fade, the plant 

 is left until the leaves have become sere half way down. They are 

 then carefully raised, w r ith as much root as possible, and laid in by the 

 heel until roots and leaves have completely withered. Then they are 

 dried in the open air, but under cover, until the callus to which the 

 roots are attached will peel off like the boiled choke of an artichoke. 

 The leaves are then cut close to the bulb, which is placed on a frame 

 so contrived as to admit air around it to every part, with an entire 

 protection from sun and weather. The frame, in fact, exactly re- 

 sembles a bottle-rack with a penthouse roof, or that used for drying 

 wood. When dry, they are separately wrapped in paper and labelled. 



5. They are planted in October; but as in a show-bed it is very 

 important to have all the colours in bloom at once — and as this is no 

 easy matter, requiring not only a general knowledge of their times 

 of flowering, but a particular knowledge of each variety — it may be 

 as well to know how the Dutch apply this knowledge to compel them 

 to uniformity. This is by planting the latest bloomers deepest ; 

 and my impression is, that the difference between the greatest and 

 least depth is as much as a foot. And, as a general rule, I can 

 myself answer for its being very decidedly thus : that the blue 

 are the earliest in flower, and the deepest in colour the first, the 

 red next, the white third, and the yellow last. 



I remember some years ago, a gentleman at an auction giving 80 

 guilders (6/. 135. 4d.) for a f share in a bulb of a new variety ; and 

 on my inquiring of a friend how such bargains were managed, he 

 said, that the person holding the largest share in a bulb has the right 

 of growing it, and the offsets are apportioned according to the shares. 

 The same friend (the late Mr. Stahl, of Haarlem) told me that a mode 

 of hastening the production of offsets, but hazardous to the parent, 

 and therefore rarely practised on high-priced flowers, is, to scoop out 

 the inside of the bulb into the shape of a cone with a sharp and narrow 

 penknife, leaving the margin whence the roots sprout untouched. 

 When dry, both portions are planted ; and if the operation be survived, 

 they make their appearance above ground in the form of numberless 

 small offsets. He further added, that in this way sometimes new 

 colours are obtained, by using a knife wet with the juice of a coloured 

 flower to operate upon the bulb of a white, and instanced the blue 

 Globe terrestre as produced in this way from the white Sultan Achmet ; 

 and that a red, — the name of which I cannot at this moment recollect, 

 though I remember the flower, — was afterwards produced in the same 

 way from the same parent. This seems questionable ; although the 

 form, size, habit, and all but colour of those three varieties are cer- 

 tainly identical. 



As the Hyacinth is very much more prolific than the Tulip, and 

 as the offsets and seedlings come sooner to maturity, I hope some 



