46 MASSACHUSETTS HORTJCULTURAL SOCIETY. 



present day. It has only to announce itself, and presto, our less pretending 

 friends are " left out in the cold." 



The plant is tuberous rooted, and beloncrs to the order HeinerocallideEe ; is 

 said to be a native of the East Indies, but has been cultivated in Europe for 

 two centuries or more. The tubers are largely grown in Italy for exportation, 

 from whence ours are chiefly brought, yet florists in the vicinity of New York 

 are said to be successful in raising good roots for flowering — more than can 

 be said of florists in tiiis vicinity. Why the difference? is a good question 

 for the curious in such matters. 



It is a shy-growing plant, requiring treatment congenial to it, so that the 

 careless gardener is sure to be mortified at the result if he give it only the 

 ordinary treatment of bulbs and tubers. I have seen beds of them, nunibering 

 hundreds of roots, with less than a dozen spikes, with a few meagre blossoms 

 on each. This is truly " love's labor lost," for it is just as easy to produce 

 upon each a magnificent spike of from twenty-five to thirty-five splendid blos- 

 soms, as to grow a hill of corn. Each operation involves the necessity of 

 doing your duty, nothing more. 



It is the design of this article to show how it may be done, and, if the 

 reader will 'bear with nie, I will give him my mode of culture, which is the 

 result of much experimenting, by one who looks upon flowers in general, 

 and tuberoses in particular, as amongst the necessaries of life, and as such is 

 willing to labor for them. In this connection I would say, that I cultivate only 

 a "small patch," and as it is for the small patch gardeners that I write, so I 

 attach the utmost importance to a hot-bed, as the best aid to him who wishes 

 to accomplish the most with the least expenditure of time and labor. 



Now suppose the heat is up in my hot-bed, and I have selected my tubers 

 as soon as opened by the importer, thus securing the strongest and best grown 

 roots, known by the size and Jirmness even to the top, and the absence of offsets 

 or their marks, being sure that there i^ no old blossom-stalk, evidence of ex- 

 haustion. Time, about the first of April, I prepare seven-inch pots, with the 

 usual drainage, (I prefer charcoal to anything else,) over this I place about 

 four inches of old dry cow manure, picked up in the pasture and preserved for 

 future use, (the older the better,) broken fine but not sifted. Then I fill the 

 pot nearly full of a compost of nearly equal parts of sand, loam, peat, and 

 last year's hot bed, with a slight admixture of charcoal dust ; I then prepare 

 the roots by removing the outer scale or coating, so as to detect embryo offsets. 

 These I carefully remove with a knife or the thumb nail, so as to lessen future 

 operations of that kind. This done, plunge them in the compost, just covering 

 them from sight, and then fill the pot with spent-bark or tan, and plunge the 

 pot to the rim in the tan, which, by the way, I deem the very best material in 

 which to plunge pots in the hot-bed, retaining well the heat and moisture, and 

 withal, pleasant to work in. Soon, they begin to strike root and the foli- 

 age to show its tips. I then give slight waterings until indications of " spin- 

 ning up," appear ; then I increase the water so much as to solve, to some ex- 



