April 17, i88g.] 



Garden and Forest. 



185 



The harvest season is from the middle of July to the middle 

 of September, at which time all the bulbs in the field, great 

 and small, are dug and carried to the sorting house, where 

 those large enough for the inarket (from five to nine inches in 

 circumference) are selected out, packed in sawdust and imme- 

 diately shipped to the United States and Europe. Those bulbs 

 not large enough for the market are sorted into three sizes 

 and replanted for the next year's crop. 



The power of this Lily to propagate itself is most wonderful 

 in this climate, and new bulbs are formed in many ways: from 

 seed, from offshoots, from scales of the bulb, and from cut- 



These large bulbs which have been stripped of scales 

 are planted, and in two years can be stripped again, and 

 so on forever. Many bulbs propagate themselves by offshoots 

 of the healthy growing bulbs in the field, and a field planted 

 out to Lilies for several years becomes alive with new bulbs 

 from offshoots and bits of scales broken off when the crop is 

 harvested. These bulbs coming up between the rows are 

 spaded under when the soil is cultivated. 



The question is often asked. Cannot the business be over- 

 done? This hardly seems possible, as the florist who forces 

 the bulbs in his northern green-house throws them away at the 



Fig. 103.— Hypericum 



See pag^ 



tings of the flower-stalk planted in the ground after blossom- 

 ing. Even the leaves of the flower-stalk, stripped off and 

 planted in the ground, will form bulbs, and a flower-stalk cut 

 and placed in a bottle of water will form bull)S from top to bot- 

 tom. The method most in vogue, however, 'is to take well- 

 ripened buUis two or three years old, having a circumference 

 of about twelve inches; tear off all the scales, scatter them in a 

 shallow trench and cover with about two inches of soil. Each 

 scale will make from two to six new bulbs, which will grow 

 the first year from the size of a pea to that of a large Hickory- 

 nut, and probably one-third of these bulbs will grow large 

 enough for the market at the end of the second year. 



end of the season, atid buys again the next year, as he cannot 

 economically "ripen off" iiis bulbs, and, even if he could, 

 they would not flower well the second year. Again, the 

 demand comes from so large an area— from the United States, 

 England, France, Germany, Austria ami Russia— a inarket 

 field large enough, surely," for a little island containing but 

 1,200 acres of arable land. 



This bulb is grown to sonu! extent in Japan, but it is not pos- 

 sible to get the crop from Japan into the United States and 

 European markets before November, and even then the bulbs 

 are not as florifcrousas those grown in Bermuda. 



Hamilton, Bermuda. ^'"'^ //arg^'r. 



