16 BULLETIN 797, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
coats to split. A dry, cool basement or half basement would seem 
to be an ideal place for such storage, but in a region adapted to 
bulb culture any building in which the ventilation is under good 
control will answer the purpose. In any location in such a building, 
except possibly close to the roof, where the temperature gets too high, 
bulbs can be cured successfully. After being cleaned the bulbs re- 
main on the shelves in the bulb house until planting begins or until 
they are packed and sent to market. Sometimes the bulbs have been 
packed immediately after cleaning them, but it is better to leave 
them on the shelves and to box or sack the merchantable ones just 
before shipment is to take place. At times, when it is impossible to 
control light and air in the bulb house on account of being obliged 
to put tulips, narcissi, and hyacinths in the same compartment, 
it may be possible to cover the bulbs on the shelves with wheat chaff' 
or buckwheat hulls. They keep very well in this way. Sometimes 
the shelves may be 
covered with burlap, 
or burlap curtains 
may be hung in front 
of the shelves. 
Narcissus bulbs re- 
quire less care in 
their handling than 
those of the tulip, but 
it is a very easy mat- 
ter to injure them, too. 
When dug they are 
usualh T thrown into 
windrows in the field. 
In the absence of sun 
Fig. 10. — Dug bulbs curing- under litter from the beds. «/i • ,/ 
they can remain there 
for several days without injury. It has been the practice at Belling- 
ham to let the larger bulbs have a few hours of sun, but in the Vir- 
ginia bulb region it is said that two hours of exposure to the sun at 
midday are very likely to ruin many varieties. In the Netherlands 
it is a common practice to cover the windrows of bulbs with a thin 
layer of sand. We usually cover them with the litter hoed off the 
beds before digging. (Fig. 10.) When the bulbs are finally placed 
upon the shelves they may be piled thicker than tulips, but the thick- 
ness of the pile should be governed by the moisture content of the 
bulbs. They will withstand more aeration than tulips. It is for this 
reason advisable not to handle the two kinds of bulbs in the same 
compartment of the bulb house. 
In practice, the curing, handling, and drying of narcissus bulbs 
are very likely to be done on a makeshift basis. In other words, 
