THE GLADIOLUS. 79 
You must now prepare for planting out. The bed 
should be in an open, sunny, though sheltered situation, 
and the soil should be deep and mellow, and rich in humus. 
A heavy, pasty, or lumpy soil will not do.  Gladioli will 
grow finely in peat, and still more finely in a hazelly 
loam, continuing abundance of rotted turf, and a moderate 
amount of old hotbed soil. Many natural soils which 
may be described as sandy loam will grow them well 
without any aid whatever; but we have noticed that the 
most successful erowers prepare the ground with care, 
and put in a pretty liberal dressing of well-rotted farm- 
yard manure. 
The best time to plant ont is just when the pots are 
full of roots, and will turn out without breaking. Then 
make your plantation, and if the weather be dry give 
water every evening for a week, after which discontinue 
watering for a week or so, unless the weather sets in 
unusually dry and hot, in which case the water-pot must 
be kept going. In a run of ten years, during which we 
flowered all the varieties, we managed to do well without 
often resorting to the water-pot. We had our plants 
nicely rooted in small pots, and put them out in showery 
weather, and did little more for them than to keep the 
eround clear of weeds and afford aid as required in staking 
and tying; and the bloom was always of good average 
quality, and sometimes more than that. 
In respect of taking up the corms, it is very important 
to remark that you may incur serious loss by waiting 
until the leaves die down, for in a mild, moist autumn they 
will keep green until near Christmas; meanwhile, perhaps, 
the roots, being moist when they ought to be dry, become 
diseased, and this is manifested in the next season in 
