May.j flower garden. 393 



them, their loose skins taken off, with such offsets us may be easily 

 separated. 



When this dressing is finished; the bulbs are wrapped up in se- 

 parate pieces of paper, or buried in sand, made effectually dry for 

 that purpose, where they remain till the return of the season for 

 planting. 



Another, and less troublesome, mode of treatment after bloom, 

 though perhaps more hazardous, is to suffer the roots to remain in 

 the bed till the stems and foliage appear nearly dried up and con- 

 sumed; this will seldom happen to be the case in less than two 

 months after bloom; the bulbs are then to be taken up, cleaned 

 from the fibres, soil, &c. and spread to dry and harden on the floor 

 of an airy room, for about three weeks, then to be preserved in sand 

 or paper as before directed. Or they may be deposited in dry bar- 

 ley 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 

 materially injures the whole. 



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

 cutting oil' the flower steins 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, co- 

 vering the roots and fibres with the earth, and suffering the leaves 

 to hang down the ridges; here they remain till the bulbs are suffi- 

 ciently ripened, and then are taken up and treated as before. 



Tulips. 



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

 last month in page 342, 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 oft", or if suffered to remain and ri- 

 pen seed, it would procrastinate the maturity of the roots, and con- 

 siderably weaken them. 



Towards the end of the month, or rather when the grass or fo- 

 liage 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 appears 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 become 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 di- 

 versify the bed, according to fancy, either as to intermixture of 

 3 B 



