SUCCESS WITH BULB STOCK 199 



ferred; setting the flats on heating pipes often results in blind buds. 

 Applying water heated to 80 or 90 deg. is also of benefit. While 

 such treatment is necessary with stock for December and early 

 January, for later use and as you approach the natural time of flow- 

 ering, less shading and heat will give good results and the actual 

 time required keeps on getting shorter. 



It is always well to go slow in forcing extra early stock when 

 you lack facilities; for example, it doesn't pay to get two dozen 

 good salable flowers out of eighty bulbs planted in a flat, which is 

 a th'ng that may easily happen with Tulips or Trumpet Major 

 Narcissi; each succeeding week makes the forcing easier and gives 

 you a greater percentage of perfect flowers, but after all, it isn't a 

 hard matter to construct a small forcing frame or box even in the 

 small establishment, and if you start out with well-rooted plants 

 of the right sorts and attend to them properly you have as good a 

 chance to succeed as the man who forces on a large scale. 



MAKING DUTCH BULBS PAY 



From the time the first Trumpet Major Narcissi comes into 

 bloom until the last Darwin Tulips are cut outdoors in June the re- 

 tail grower has use for such flowers every day; there is a demand for 

 this stock and it is one of the crops he can and should grow on, 

 himself, and make pay. 



What the bulbs cost isn't of as great importance as the ques- 

 tion of arranging matters so as to have a regular supply of flowers 

 right along; this is the whole secret of success with bulb stock from 

 the retail growers' standpoint. Try to avoid the oftmade mistake 

 of having a dozen flats of La Reine Tulips or Golden Spur Narcissi 

 one week and none for the next three weeks. Every time you let 

 that happen you lose money, for in such cases you most likely have 

 more flowers at one time than you know what to do with, and then 

 again, have to buy them when you should cut your own. To have 

 to buy cut bulb stock is a good thing only when you haven't enough 

 of your own, when occasions arise calling for more than you can 

 cut yourself; but not when this is due to poor management on your 

 part in not timing your own properly. From the end of January 

 on it requires in the neighborhood of three weeks to get a flat of 

 Tulips or Narcissi into bloom, from the day it is brought into heat. 

 That is enough to go by in planning at the time of ordering your 

 supply how many of each variety you should plant, so as not to go 

 too heavily into it to start with. 



If you arrange it so that, for instance, you have a flat of La 

 Reine Tulips in good shape to cut from each week, but find weeks 

 when you need three times as many, well and good; buy them. The 

 more you sell the better for you, and you are justified in planting 

 more another year. On the other hand, if some week you don't sell 



