40 
The Young Gardener . 
Scillas are about a penny a piece. So we may 
fill a window without any great expense. My 
own plan is to place a number of pieces of charcoal 
at the bottom of a glass milk-pan or in a china 
dish, and then to put a little moist sand on this. 
Then I fill the dish nearly full of dry sand, and 
place the bulbs upon it, just pressing the sand 
down gently. 
If water-glasses or soup-plates are used, the 
bulbs should only just touch the water, indeed 
scarcely to touch at all for the first start. 
When pots of soil are used, the pots (about 
four or five inches wide) should be drained with 
charcoal, with a little moss laid over it, and then 
the soil should be mixed with sand and put in 
extremely loosely. The bulb should be put to 
stand upon the soil, and then more soil and sand 
should be pressed on rather firmly, or the pots 
should be sunk in a deepish bed of ashes or of 
sand if they are out of doors. 
The Hyacinths, however, are ten times prettier 
when we plant three or four in the same pot to- 
gether. A dish containing seven or eight small 
Hyacinths and a few Snowdrops and little Scillas 
is most delightful. These make the most charming 
nosegays of pink, and blue, and white. 
