JUSTICE ON HYACINTHS. 531 



root from root every way, thrusting them down with your 

 hand into the earth more than 1 inch, to keep them fast, so 

 as not to be overturned by the laying of the compost above 

 the bulbs, to the height of 3 inches ; above that, riddle or lay 

 on 1 inch of good garden-earth, whereby there may be 4 

 inches of earth above the bulbs, I have often, after planting 

 the hyacinths bulbs, about the beginning of October, covered 

 them with no more than 2 inches of their compost, until the 

 beginning of November, and have had great success with 

 them by this method; for to my experience I know, that if 

 there is too much earth above their roots, they will not strike 

 out one fibre, and the roots will rot infallibly ; because too 

 much earth above the new planted roots, excludes the air 

 from them : As soon as the frosts set in, or by the end of 

 November, I always covered my beds of hyacinths, doubles 

 and singles, with 3 inches of old rotten tan-bark, or fallen 

 leaves of trees, and also 2 feet beyond the ends of the beds, 

 and filled the alleys betwixt the beds (which may be 2 feet 

 broad) as high as the top of these beds, with this rotted tan, 

 which I did not take off them, until the end of Ferbuary or 

 beginning of March, as the weather is good or bad ; and if 

 the tops of these beds are raised 4 inches above the path-way : } 

 I laid in the old tan into the alleys of the beds, to the height of 

 the tops of the beds, to prevent the frost getting into the bulbs 

 which are planted upon the outsides of the beds. I very of- 

 ten covered the tops of the beds with pease haulm, which de- 

 fends against frost, as well as the bark, is a lighter cover than 

 tan, and is more airy, so as the wet rancid vapours from the 

 tops of these beds of rich soil, may pass more easily off 

 through this straw than through the tan, which will prevent 

 the complaints of the roots of hyacinths rotting, after they are 

 planted, and have struck out their fibres, which often hap- 

 pens. I also observed, to plant a double white and a double 

 blue hyacinth in the first row, and so alternately the whole 

 length of the bed, planting always those together, which 

 blowed at a time, or at one and the same season ; that is, ear- 

 ly blowers, second blowers, and late blowers, all by them- 

 selves, and as near together as possibly the season of their 

 blowing can admit. And the second row I begun with a 

 double blue, and then a double white, in the quincunx order^ 

 to the end of the row, and in the same manner with the third 

 and fourth rows. I observed, also, to remove the tan with 



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