CHAPTER XXI 

 ENGLISH EFFECTS WITH LONG-LIVED BULBS 



The cheapest way of growing flowers by the million in wood, meadow, 

 and orchard, where they will multiply without care and create 

 visions of supreme beauty 



BY FAR the most important lesson England has to teach us 

 about bulbs is that they furnish the cheapest way of 

 growing flowers by the million in wood, meadow, and 

 orchard, where they will look and act like wild flowers, multiply- 

 ing without care and finally creating visions of supreme beauty. 



For example, take the two daffodil pictures on plates 86 and 

 87. You could see these yellow flowers tossing " their heads in 

 sprightly dance," on your own grassy land, without any sign of the 

 spade or handiwork of man! It is hard to realize that daffodils 

 live as long as apple trees and are surer to bear a crop every 

 year. Yet there is a field near Trenton, N. J., where they have 

 been blooming every April for one hundred years without 

 care! 



From the economic point of view wild gardening is absolutely 

 justified, because it is the cheapest form of gardening. These 

 daffodils, for instance, cost one or two cents a bulb. They do not 

 interfere with a hay crop in meadow or orchard. By the middle of 

 June, when you are ready to cut hay, the leaves of the daffodils 

 will have ripened, turned yellow, and fallen flat upon the ground. 

 The same is true of all other spring-blooming bulbs that have 



strength enough to force their way through the turf year after 



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