THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 117 



the flower-stem to perish, in its own way. The last business is to 

 take them out of the glasses, spread their roots out carefully on the 

 bed, and cover them with earth until the bulb is quite hidden from 

 the daylight. To do all this nicely requires some practice ; and you 

 may be sure a beginner will damage both roots and leaves in his first 

 attempts. But the begiuner's chief difficulty will be to keep them 

 close together. The leaves will sprawl about so, and demand 

 so much room, that a good-sized frame will hold only a dozen. 

 Nevertheless, tbe object must be to get a hundred into the space 

 which seems to be required for a dozen. 



The bulbs ought not to touch each other, but they need not be 

 more than three or four inches apart ; and to cure the sprawling of 

 the leaves, a thin stick may be put to each bulb, and the leaves 

 be brought together gently with a bit of bast and kept to the stick, 

 leaving them sufficiently open that the daylight may get to the 

 heart of the plant, so that every leaf will have some share of it. If 

 after all the great leaves get a little mixed, and overlap one another, 

 it cannot be helped, and you must make your mind easy. Give 

 them a good soaking from a watering-pot filled with tepid water, and 

 with a coarse rose on the spout, and at once draw the light down, 

 and shut them up close. The next day give air for an hour in the 

 morning, and if the sun shines fiercely on the frame, lay a mat on to 

 shade them. Remove the mat when the sunshine has abated, and 

 shut up the frame again. Continue this practice daily for a week. 

 At the end of that time they will require another good watering, 

 which must be done in the same way as before. If you thrust your 

 finger into the soil of the bed, you will find that it is comfortably warm, 

 and if you have a few hyacinths left in glasses indoors, fetch one 

 and compare it with tbose in the frame. You will find tbat already 

 the plants in the frame have acquired a deeper shade of green, and 

 look more glossy and healthy than when they were in glasses. The 

 shading must be continued whenever the sun shines fiercely on the 

 frame, but they must have as much daylight as possible, and plenty 

 of air. It will be well, however, always to shut them up at night 

 until their growth is completed, as the confinement causes the depo- 

 sition of a heavy dew upon the leaves, which is a great help to them. 

 In some six or eight weeks from the time of planting them in the 

 frame, the leaves will begin to look yellow, and to die from the point 

 downwards. From this time cease to water them, take off the light, 

 and leave them exposed night and day, and the more sunshine and 

 drought the better. When they are at last taken up, many will be 

 found with fresh roots attached, as if still inclined to grow ; but if 

 the general bulk are ripe, the leaves dead, the roots nowhere, and 

 the bulbs hard and heavy, take them up, cut off any roots that are 

 still fresh, and store away the stock in a dry place, and quite pro- 

 tected from the action of the air. I here suppose them to be all 

 planted at the same time ; this, of course, is merely for convenience 

 in describing the practice. Let them be planted out as soon as 

 possible after the beauty of the bloom is over : every day that they 

 are confined in a sitting-room beyond what is needful for the sake of 

 their flowers is a day wasted in the process of their recovery. Id 



