78 MAKING OF A FLOWER GARDEN 



growth to start, the first tiny leaflets will be seen 

 breaking the soil and bloom will follow so quickly as 

 to seem simultaneous. A warm, sunny situation should 

 be chbsen, as the flowers are apt to remaia closed in 

 the shade and on cloudy days. Set the bulbs two to 

 three inches apart as allowance must be made for the 

 development for the remarkable production of new 

 bulbs. When the time comes for lifting the bulbs in 

 the fall, not the one little bulb planted in spring will 

 be in evidence, but it will be found that a remarkable 

 growth has been going on under the ground during 

 the summer, of which the delicate flower and foliage 

 above ground has given no hint. In place of the 

 one little bulb planted in spring a long, fibrous core, 

 not unlike the soft cob of an ear of corn has formed, 

 and, like the corn, it is completely surrounded with 

 tiny bulblets, the whole forming a growth from three 

 to five inches in length and an inch and a half to two 

 inches in diameter. Each of these little bulbs will be 

 removed for separate planting in the following spring. 

 A tea cup full of bulbs planted in spring will, not in- 

 frequently, give a peck of bulbs by fall, and these can 

 be sorted and only the largest retained for future 

 planting. No other bulbous plant known equals this 

 in productiveness. The care in winter is simply to 

 lift the bulbs, dry in a warm, sunny position for a 

 few days and, store in paper sacks with some light 

 chaff — such as buckwheat chaff — ^among them, in a 



