HYACINTH CULTURE AT HAARLEM 151 



exhaust the spot where it has grown, this is the chief reason 

 why growers change their bulbs year by year. Damp is death 

 to bulbs. In a damp soil bulbs can never be preserved for 

 any length of time. The two general rules, — Choke of light 

 soil, Avoidance of damp, are the very foundations of bulb 

 culture. The " couches " or " beds " made by florists for their 

 finest hyacinths are remade every year, they are also protected 

 by caisses and layers of manure from the cold in winter, and 

 they are shaded from the hot sun in spring by canvas 

 awnings. The old soil (taken from the hyacinth beds) is 

 carried to the garden borders, where other flowers are grown, 

 such as tulips, lilies, Fritillaries, etc. The following year 

 hyacinths are replaced in these borders, and succeed therein 

 marvellously, — thus year by year the same earth bears 

 alternately hyacinths and other flowers. If the reader's 

 patience is not exhausted entirely I must ask him to bear 

 out a little longer, for I cannot without entering into very 

 minute details give any intelligible idea of the qualities 

 necessary to provide the sap with the kind of nourishment 

 it seeks in the soil after the bulb is put into the ground. 



In Haarlem they take two years to prepare the compost, 

 or composed soil, which suits hyacinths so well. The first 

 year a store of leaves are gathered together and laid in 

 considerable heaps, so large that while they are rotting and 

 becoming fit for use the sun cannot penetrate, for if they 

 were spread about the sun would cause the salts and oils 

 contained in the decayed leaves to evaporate, for this reason 

 the heaps are not to be in places where they are exposed to 

 the sun, nor in a damp place where water can sink in or 

 stagnate. Growers do not gather in all kinds of leaves, 

 they have observed that oak, chestnut, beech, and the leaves 

 of the plane tree (which is now becoming common in 

 Holland), and others of like nature, do not dissolve easily 

 into earth ; while the leaves of elm, wych-elm and birch, etc., 



