214 CULTURE OP BULBOUS ROOTS IN KOOMS. 



Forced bulbs are seldom good for any thing afterwards ; 

 however, those who wish to preserve them, may immerse 

 them wholly in water for a few days ; and then having 

 taken them out, and dried them in the shade for a short time, 

 they m.iy ba planted in a good soil, which will sometimes 

 <rause them to flower the second year. It does not clearly 

 appear in what way the water operates when the bulb ig 

 wholly immersed ; but it is certain that bulbs so treated 

 increase in size and solidity, and have an incomparably 

 better chance of flowering the second year, than those which 

 have not been so treated ; most probably their total immer- 

 sion enables them to obtain a greater proportion of oxygen 

 from the water. 



Nosegays should have the water in which their ends arc 

 inserted changed, on the same principle as bulbous roots ; 

 and a much faded nosegay, or one dried up, may often b& 

 recovered for a time, by covering it with a glass bell, or cup, 

 or by substituting warm water for cold. 



Very fine Hyacinths have been grown in a drawing-room, 

 in the following novel manner. A quantity of moss, classi- 

 cally called liypnum, and vulgarly fog, was placed in a 

 water-tight box, about eight or nine inches deep, into which 

 the bulbs were placed at the end of September, without 

 mould and duly watered ; the result of this experiment 

 was highly favourable. 



