58 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



Homer, Sophocles, Lucian, Virgil, and many other 

 venerable authors, and in later days its charms 

 have been sung by Shakespeare, Dray ton, Milton, 

 Herrick, Keats, and divers other poets. 



Daffodil culture has produced a great variety of 

 very beautiful forms. These are grown, commer- 

 cially, in immense quantities. From the Scilly Isles 

 alone over five hundred tons of Spring flowers are 

 sent up to the great metropolis and the provincial 

 flower markets, and these are mostly daffodils. As 

 it takes about seven thousand bunches of twelve 

 flowers each to make one ton weight, it will be seen 

 that this means the gathering of millions of these 

 flowers from this source alone. The fen-lands of 

 Lincolnshire and Cambridge are also largely de- 

 voted to this industry. At Wisbeach, for instance, 

 one grower alone will show us over five million 

 bulbs in bloom at once a sight indeed to see. 



Daffodil bulbs, wild or cultivated, should be 

 planted in our rock-garden soon after they have 

 done flowering, and they require moisture, so that 

 on light, sandy ground one has but little success. 

 They must be planted, too, where they will get the 

 benefit of some little shade : it must not be for- 

 gotten that they are plants of the woodland. Near 

 where we pen these lines daffodils are grown in 

 immense numbers in the orchards, and very beau- 

 tiful they look as they extend as far as the eye can 

 see beneath the leafless apple and pear-trees. 



