412 Culture of the Hyacinth. 



repay our care and labour than the hyacinth. Though the 

 bulbs are hardy and well adapted for this climate, yet it is a 

 humiliating reflection that the florists of this country should 

 be lookers on and suffer the market to be monopolised an- 

 nually, without an effort on their part to come in competition 

 with their (as yet) more successful rivals. We are very justly 

 allowed to excel in every other branch of floriculture, and 

 why not be on an equal footing, if not eclipse the Dutch, in 

 the propagation of the hyacinth, which, with little care and 

 trifling expense, may be brought to the highest perfection in 

 Britain. Did the hyacinth possess the properties of the po- 

 tatoe, we would have sufficient for our use and to spare, and 

 I am persuaded that Holland, with all its advantages, would 

 have long since yielded the palm to this country. 



The hyacinth, like most ornamental flowers, does best in 

 free rich soil; but wherever the onion will thrive, the former 

 will flourish also. The ground should be trenched to the 

 depth of eighteen inches, and a good dressing of rotten dung 

 allowed. Some there are who hold that imported double 

 hyacinths will degenerate in a few seasons to mere shadows 

 of what they were in the first instance. If due precaution be 

 not taken, all this, if not worse, will follow. When the 

 bulbs are left in the beds or borders from one year's end to 

 the other, when they are planted in damp stiff soil, or when 

 their tops are lopped off in an undecayed state, the result is 

 a degree of canker and rottenness in the heart of the bulb. 

 But all this can be avoided, and I will not only hazard an 

 opinion, that hyacinths will come perfectly double the second 

 year after importation, but for a succession of years ; and far- 

 ther, that their offsets will flower in as great perfection, and 

 as true to their kind, as the original bulbs. This I can affirm 

 to be the case, from what has come within my own observ- 

 ation. I have bulbs now in flower, as perfect as they were 

 five years ago, and not inferior to the Dutch imported ones : 

 I plant them in the latter end of October, allowing one foot 

 between the rows, six inches in the rows, and sink the bulbs 

 one inch under the surface ; in the beginning of December a 

 layer of rotten dung is spread over the surface of the bed 

 three inches thick, and the whole is left in that state till 

 the bulbs have done flowering. When the leaves have 

 partially faded, they are carefully taken up and dried in a 

 shady situation, avoiding as much as possible to separate the 

 leaves from the bulb until the latter is withered up to the bud. 

 If the leaves be cut off in a green or imperfect state, the con- 

 sequences will prove as injurious to the preservation of the 

 hyacinth as to that of the onion. When the bulbs are dressed, 



