THE COUNTRY HOME [chai^ek 



just now perhaps sweet peas mark the very finest 

 work, the genius and the patience of our best 

 horticulturists. Brains also have been put into 

 new cannas and gladioli; and what a supreme 

 poem is such a rose as Virginia Coxe, or Balduin — 

 a poem written equally by an inspired hand and 

 soul! 



The tulip is my special delight, nor can I ever 

 get too many of them, everywhere about my land. 

 Let me tell you a secret. When you set a bed of 

 strawberries, push tulips down four inches deep in 

 all the rows, and six inches apart. Here they will 

 blossom early in the spring, before the strawberries 

 blossom, and they will get out of the way, all but a 

 dry stalk, before you pick your berries in June. In 

 this way you will have the most magnificent floral 

 display, without decreasing in the slightest degree 

 your crop of fruit. I am planting this year not less 

 than a full bushel of bulbs in my new beds. Once 

 in about three years your strawberry bed will have 

 worn out, and must be renewed; dig tulips also 

 once in three years, and follow up your new straw- 

 berry beds. They multiply with great rapidity, 

 and if you dig ever so carefully some bulbs will be 

 left in the soil, so that in time tulips will show 



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