SPRING-FLOWERING BULBS 255 



The best fertilizer for bulbs is that which can be 

 obtained from old yards where cow manure has been 

 thrown out and suffered to lie till it has become rotten. 

 It will be black and friable, and can be thoroughly 

 incorporated with the soil. If you can get nothing 

 but fresh manure you would do well to go without 

 any, for I know of no bulb which will do well where 

 it is used. It induces unhealthiness and decay. 



Bulbs will not do well in a soil in which water 

 is allowed to stand. Depend on that, and act accord- 

 ingly. If your bed is low, and water is retained about 

 the roots in spring, you may get one tolerably good 

 crop of flowers, but the following year you will get few 

 flowers, if any, and these will be inferior, and the 

 plants will have an unhealthy appearance. Examina- 

 tion will show you that the bulbs are diseased. There- 

 fore drain your beds well if they have not good drain- 

 age naturally. This is easily done by digging out the 

 soil to the depth of a foot or two and filling in with 

 several inches of stone, old cans, bricks, anything and 

 everything which will hold up the soil when you 

 return that which has been thrown out, and keep it 

 from settling down into a hard, compact mass in the 

 bottom of the bed. Putting in this material will raise 

 the bed to a hight which will enable it to shed most 

 of the water from melting snows and early rains, and 

 what percolates through the soil will pass off among 

 the crevices below, and thus away from the roots 

 of the bulbs. 



The best bulbs for bedding, because the hardiest, 

 are Tulips, Hyacinths, Crocuses and Snowdrops. 



I would not advise mixing different kinds in the 

 same bed. A bed for each kind, by itself, will be 

 found most satisfactory. 



There are several varieties of the Tulip. Some 

 are very early, others a month later; some are single, 



