408 THE PLEASURE, OR [MAY 



paper as before directed. Or they may be deposited in dry barley 

 chaff, saw-dust, or kept on open shelves out of the sun and wet ; but 

 too much exposure to the air often destroys many roots, and materi- 

 ally injures the whole. 



Others again take up the roots at the first mentioned period, cut- 

 ting off the flower stems but not the foliage, and prepare a bed of 

 light earth, either where the hyacinths had grown, or in any other 

 convenient place ; forming it into a high sloping ridge, east and 

 west ; on the north side of which, 'they place the roots in rows, so as 

 that the bulbs do not touch, and in a horizontal manner, covering the 

 roots and fibres with the earth, and suffering the leaves to hang down 

 the ridges ; here they remain till the bulbs are sufficiently ripened, 

 and then are taken up and treated as before. 



TULIPS. 



Continue to protect the fine late tulips, yet in flower, as directed 

 last month on page 356, and treat them in every respect as there 

 advised. 



As soon as the petals or flowers fall, the seed-vessel of each should 

 be immediately broken off, or if suffered to remain and ripen seed, it 

 would procrastinate the maturity of the roots, and considerably weak- 

 en them. 



Towards the end of the month, or rather when the grass or foliage 

 becomes of a yellowish-brown, not before, which will happen sooner 

 or later, according to season, climate, soil and situation, and a few 

 inches of the top or stem appear dry, purplish, and withered, you 

 are to take up the roots of such as you particularly esteem ; for this 

 is the critical period for that work, because if done earlier, they 

 would be weak and spongy, and deferred later, their juices would be- 

 come gross ; which would appear manifest at the succeeding bloom, 

 by too great a redundance of colorific matter in the petals, and the 

 flowers would be what is generally termed foul. 



When the roots are taken up, they are to be laid in a dry shady 

 place and gradually dried; observing to keep each variety of the 

 superb kinds separate, that in planting, you may know how to diver- 

 sify the bed, according to fancy, either as to intermixture of colors, 

 or the usual height and growth of the plants. About five or six 

 weeks after the bulbs are taken up and properly dried, it is proper to 

 take off their loose skins, fibres, and offsets; the last brown skin 

 which is so intimately connected with the root, ought to be left on ; 

 after which they should be preserved in dry sand, barley chaff, saw- 

 dust, or rolled up in separate papers, till the time of planting, for 

 the action of the air during our warm summers and autumns would 

 greatly weaken and injure them, by drying up part of their juices. 



The smallest and weakest offsets, particularly such as are not pro- 

 vided with a brown skin, ought to be replanted as soon as they are 

 taken up, about an inch and a half deep, in a fresh sandy loam, and 

 in a dry situation ; or instead of replanting these offsets so early, 

 they may be preserved from the drying influence of the air by bury- 



