Pictorial Peactical Bulb 

 Growing. 



chapter I —Bulbs in Beds ana Borders. 



T is in this particular direction that we may 

 see the most marked growth in the popularity 

 of bulbs during the past few years, but there 

 has been a distinct deviation from the very 

 formal lines of a decade ago, when one kind 

 only was permissible in each bed. Xow we 

 see that in the vast majority of cases two kinds 

 are employed, and in many instances there are 

 three. One is bound to appreciate the change 

 in this direction, because the creation of a 

 greater variety must add to the interest of the 

 garden as well from the visitor's as the owner's point of view. 



Hundreds of thousands, and probably millions, of Hyacinths, 

 Tulips, Crocuses, Daffodils, and other bulbs are utilised in the 

 gardens of this country every season, and it is safe to say that there 

 is not another class of plants which, grown in such immense numbers, 

 brings so few disappointments to its cultivators. This is accounted 

 for by the great ease with which they may be grown, and by the 

 endeavours made by growers to fulfil all their requirements in 

 regard to soil, manure, and moisture. That there are failures every 

 year it were useless to deny, but the majority of these may be said to 

 be due rather to misfortune than to any fault on the part of the 

 cultivator. A bed of Tulips, or of Dafiodils, may and does fail, 

 and the gardener is blamed for some supposed error in management, 

 whereas the true cause can almost invariably be traced to some 

 inherent fault in the bulbs over which it is absolutely certain the 

 British grower could not possibly have control, as the trouble is 

 traceable to the fields of Holland, where the bulbs were brought 

 forward to supposed flowering size before they were offered to 

 buyers at home. 



It should be thoroughly understood by everyone who has bulbs in 

 his garden that the flower is actually formed for him by the propaga- 



