4 BULLETIN 1270, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
mainly for the leafage, cutting no leafage from his Golden Spurs, all 
bulbs of which are allowed to ripen naturally in the flats, planted 
out the next year to recuperate, and then forced again the second or 
third year. 
HOW BEDDING AND FORCED BULBS SHOULD BE HANDLED 
The normal thing is to leave these bulbs undisturbed after flower- 
ing until the tops die down naturally. This time, for stocks grown 
out of doors, will vary from May 10 to July 15, depending upon the 
season and the locality. When premature digging or removal of 
the foliage occurs, as in forced stocks, the natural development of 
the bulb is interfered with. The endeavor should be to handle them 
in a way as nearly natural as possible, There is, however, much 
latitude in the possible methods of handling. 
Bedding daffodils removed from the beds as the flowers fade have 
been dug by the writer with the tops on. Some have been heeled in 
on sandy soil in the field, some in sand on the north side of a build- 
ing, some stored in crates to dry in a root cellar, and some under the 
shade of trees with only the foliage covering the bulbs. This work. 
however, has not been done with counts and measures in a manner 
careful enough to enable one to say definitely the extent of superior- 
ity of one method over another. All that can be said is that all of 
these methods of handling have produced bulbs which flowered the 
next year with a bulb production of first quality, but with doubtless 
a reduced size of bulb and with only a slight reduction in the size 
of the flower. In these handlings, as in the case of normally grown 
field stocks, the bulbs have been taken up and stored on shelves as 
soon as the tops dried up. This requires only two or three weeks in 
the climate of Washington, D. C. 
Forced bulbs available as propagating stock for the grower are 
usually in flats of two to three dozen each. It is the common prac- 
tice to cut the plants off at the surface of the flats. This is strictly 
true in tulips. In daffodils there are usually some leaves left on the 
plants. As it is desirable to preserve and protect the flats as much 
as possible, the contents can be dumped out in a shed or in a shady 
place under trees, if the weather permits, to dry out and mature 
slowly. The length of time this will take will depend upon weather 
conditions. Four to eight weeks will usually be sufficient to put the 
In libs in shape to be taken out and put on shelves. If all the leaf aire 
Las been cut off, the matted flat content can be piled up two to four 
or more deep with little or no disadvantage. 
The method of caring for the bulbs up to the time of planting 
will depend again upon the locality and the atmospheric conditions. 
It should be noted that these forced and bedding bulbs are coming 
out of the ground earlier than normal stocks by four to six weeks. 
This means that they are going to dry out for that additional length 
of time before the planting season arrives. In the cool damp climate 
of Puget Sound. Wash., that may not be a serious factor, but in the 
Atlantic Coastal Plain, where the temperatures run high during the 
season from June to September, the bulbs will need protection from 
excessive desiccation. They are best kept in cool cellars or half 
cellars, and they may need covering with dry sand, grain chaff, or 
