FALL OR HOLLAND BULBS, ETC. 53 



Lily of the Valley, when sufficiently developed to flower, 

 should be of the size and shape shown iu figure 21. 



THE TUBEROSE (PoHanthes tulerosd), 



when grown outdoors, should never be planted until the 

 ground is warm. A good test (which our country readers 

 can usually always avail themselves of) is never to plant 

 the Tuberose until the corn crop is up two or three 

 inches high, which, in the latitude of New York, is 

 always about the first week in June. Dry bulbs or tubers 

 then planted will usually flower in October. If wanted 

 earlier, the dry bulbs should be started in moss or soil, 

 in small pots or boxes, in a greenhouse or warm room, 

 where there is plenty of light, about the first of May. 

 Thus forwarded, if planted out by the first week in June, 

 they will come into flower two or three weeks earlier. 



Forcing the Tuberose so as to have flowers during 

 the winter months from January to April cannot be done 

 unless there are appliances of heat in the greenhouse 

 that will keep up an average of eighty degrees, and that, 

 too, with a moist atmosphere, as this bulb is of a nature 

 that requires at all times a high temperature for its 

 growth. It is, however, comparatively easy to have it 

 produce flowers during November and December in the 

 greenhouse by retarding the bulbs in some cool place until 

 August. Planted then they make growth enough in the 

 warm months of the fall to give them sufficient start to 

 throw up the flower stems by the end of October. The 

 greenhouse then, however, must be kept warm (say sixty- 

 five at night with fifteen degrees higher in the daytime) for 

 the proper development of the flowers during November 

 and December. They should be set six or eight inches 

 apart. The Pearl is the best for forcing, while the tall 

 double is best for outdoor blooming. A new single variety 

 of Tuberose, "The Albino," originated in St. Louis, Mo., 



