JUSTICE ON HYACINTHS. 533 



to the iron-wires, and tied them, but so easily as not to break 

 them, or to incommode or hinder them from growing long, 

 which then they do, but only to save them from break- 

 ing, bruising, or wind-waving. Five or six weeks after they 

 have done blowing, and their green leaves are turning yel- 

 low, 4 or 5 inches below their tops, I lifted them carefully 

 out of the ground, immediately cutting off their leaves and 

 stems close to their bulbs ; I laid them directly with their re- 

 spective labels in their apartments, in boxes, in the root-room, 

 to win and dry by the air and wind, but not by the rays of 

 the sun, observing to take none of their fibres off, but to al- 

 low them to wither; for they never take any rotting from 

 their fibres, but from their broken or bruised leaves and 

 stems that are left at the roots, by the practice of some .per- 

 sons, of which I must necessarily take notice, since it is prac- 

 tised and erroneously followed by many, and which long ex- 

 perience has taught me to be the utter destruction of those 

 roots. 



. They advise to lift them at the same time I prescribe for 

 that operation, but then they order these roots, with their 

 leaves and stems remaining at them, to be laid on their sides, 

 into a sharp ridge of the ground, wherein they were planted, 

 ay and until these stems and leaves are withered, and the 

 roots (as they say) are ripened : I must say, I have in many 

 cases, and in many seasons, found this practice to be very 

 wrong; for when these roots are taken up, and laid upon 

 their sides, with their leaves and stems hanging at them to 

 ripen, (as they term it), these may thereby wither indeed ; 

 but before they are dry, it is very probable that some putre- 

 faction, descending from the dying green leaves and stem, af- 

 fects the bulb, notwithstanding of all care to prevent it ; be- 

 sides, if these roots, which, when thus laid on their sides, are 

 very thinly covered with earth, and are not preserved from 

 heavy showers of rain, and possibly exposed, immediately af- 

 ter, to a hot sun, to dry the earth in which the bulb lies ; the 

 same, by the hot rays of the sun, will be boiled in a manner, 

 and will be liable to rot. It is certain, that the rotting of 

 those bulbs proceeds oftener from their decaying leaves and 

 flower-stems, than from the fibres of the bulb ; therefore it is 

 safer to take away the cause of this rotting, and the effect 

 will cease, by cutting off these leaves, and decaying flower- 



