52 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



week, so that the cuts may open and remain open. 

 After that he will treat it as a hollowed bulb is 

 treated, that is, leave it alone in the dry warmth of 

 the barn, and in time there will appear between the 

 layers innumerable young bulblets, of sizes varying 

 from a grain of rice to a pea. One may sometimes 

 see on the shelves of bulb barns the swollen and 

 distorted parent bulbs, the young bulbs distending 

 all their coats, waiting in the warmth for the time 

 of planting. The parent, whether cut or hollowed, 

 is planted whole in this state, when a proportion of 

 the young bulbs take individual root and establish 

 a separate existence. When in July the bulbs are 

 taken out of the ground the young ones are found 

 to be nice little bulbs of quite moderate propor- 

 tions. Not yet, of course, of saleable size nor of the 

 blooming age ; they want more years of planting 

 and lifting at the proper seasons before they are the 

 substantial bulbs of commerce. They flower before 

 that time, sometimes in the first but more often 

 in the second year, but they have not come to per- 

 fection, and it is not till they are four years old that 

 there may be expected the perfect, big, trussed 

 flower. 



Seeing the labour in production one wonders, 

 not that hyacinths are " so dear," but rather that 



