ON RAISING TULIPS FROM SEED. 75 



two months at least to form their bulb, and if at the latter end af 

 October, they are placed in a green house or cold frame, they 

 will grow a little more. They will die downwards in December, 

 and remain buried in the soil until the time your other roots be- 

 gin to make their appearance, when I have no doubt they will 

 also make theirs. Each seedling must be taken up at the end of 

 the second year, and planted the same as you do your offsets. 

 Each pod of seed ought to be sown in a separate pot and marked, 

 that if you raise a good variety you maybe enabled to trace its 

 origin. Each seedling ought to be kept in a separate box or 

 paper bag with the increase, so that when it blooms, if not pos- 

 sessed of good properties, you can throw the whole produce away, 

 and if on the contrary, it should be a good one, you can then tell 

 how many you have of it. Breeders which have bad bottoms 

 should not be thrown away if they have yellow filaments in a 

 bizarre and white in a rose or byblomen, as they generally break 

 clean, but if the filaments are bad, there is not the least proba- 

 bility of its breaking out. Some breeders have good bottoms, 

 &c. yet have tinged filaments, their imperfections detract from 

 the value of the Tidip, as nothing looks so well in a good formed 

 Tulip as the filaments to correspond with the rest of the pro- 

 perties. 



Seedlings generally bloom the fifth or sixth year, Some make 

 their appearance in a rectified state, and others of a self-breeder 

 colour. In judging of the properties of breeders at Floral and 

 Horticultural Meetings, the cup must be good as well as the 

 bottom, and the colour, if a Bizarre, a dark chocolate, or brown. 

 Polyphemus and Charbonnier Noir breeders, generally take the 

 first prize in this Class. The rose breeder should be of a bright 

 colour. k The Queen Boadicea breeder, (or as it was named by some 

 one who sold it as a new variety of Sherwood's) Duchess of New- 

 castle, ranks the first, having put aside the Glaphyra breeder alto- 

 gether. The Byblomen breeders should possess, in addition to 

 cup and bottom a good dark colour. As there are so many va- 

 rieties of this class, it is impossible to single the best out. 



Many Florists pretend to have a secret method of breaking 

 breeders into colour. There is none better than the following. 

 After you have grown your seedlings up to maturity, that is a 

 blooming state, plant them for one year twenty or thirty miles 

 distant from where they were raised, and the next year plant 

 them at home in maiden 8oil, and by so doing you will break 



