AMERICAN BULBS UXDER GLASS 
The temperature conditions under which tulip and other bulbs 
are held in storage should receive more than passing notice. It 
would not be profitable now to enter into a lengthy discussion of the 
subject, but in order to emphasize its importance the experience of 
1921— 25 may be briefly mentioned. 
Some preliminary tests were made of the effects of storage on tulip 
bulbs dug green. Such bulbs would be expected to be early, and 
always are so under field conditions when handled with ordinarily 
good storage, but when stored in a warm place their forcing quality 
was depressed ; that is, those so handled would not force as early as 
those held in ordinary storage, or as the same variety allowed to 
mature before digging and held in ordinary storage. Although 
heat for a certain preliminary period may accelerate the forcing 
quality, long-continued heat will actually retard it. What, then, is 
to be expected of tulips held close to tin roofs for a month or two 
in lofts and other similar situations in regions like our Atlantic 
Coastal Plain? The region, although naturally early, may have the 
forcing quality of its bulbs retarded by the long-continued high 
heat of storage. The re- 
quirements, however, 
are not so exacting but 
that they can be com- 
passed without great 
difficulty. The storage 
can be accomplished in 
any moderately cool 
structure without re- 
frigeration. 
To produce good blos- 
soms the bulbs must be 
as uniform in quality as 
it is possible to make 
them. Even when no 
visible differences are 
detected in the bulbs, there may be vast differences in performance 
unless the entire purchase is from one growing. In other words, 
satisfactory results in forcing and bedding demand that the bulbs 
be from a uniform production and from the same general character 
of soil. If bulbs from light and heavy soils are mixed, there is 
likely to be enough difference in the time of flowering to make for 
lack of perfection in results even when the bulbs themselves are 
visibly uniform — that is to say, have been carefully sized. 
If the demands in the premises are thus exacting, what is to be 
expected from tulip bulbs which, in the matter of size alone, vary 
as much as 6 centimeters? It was the writer's privilege during the 
year to examine a large planting of Darwin tulips in forcing. The 
buds were above the soil in all the flats, and the earliest were in 
blossom. Bulbs were pulled out of the flats at random. In Pride 
of Haarlem alone it was found that bulbs varying from 7 to 13 
centimeters had been flatted up together for forcing when forcing 
size in this -variety should run from 12 centimeters upward. Both 
consumers and producers should avoid attempts to operate upon a 
basis of this kind, for nothing but disaster can result. Even a casual 
Fig. 1. — Schematic sections of tulip bulbs properly 
and improperly handled in storage. The one on the 
right was allowed to dry out too much. The sec- 
tions were made when the flats were ready to bring 
into heat from the heeling ground 
