chap, viii.] HYACINTHS. 291 
rial to ensure perfect drainage, and the bulbs 
should be planted in a compost of peat, sand, 
and very rotten cow-dung. The bulbs should 
only be about half covered with soil; and if 
in boxes they should be kept, if practicable, 
in a greenhouse, till they are ready to flower. 
If in pots, they should be plunged into a hot¬ 
bed, or into a tan-stove; or where this cannot 
be done they should be buried in the garden, 
so that the point of the bulb should be at 
least four inches below the surface. Here 
they should remain till about six weeks before 
flowering, when the pots should be taken 
out, and placed where they are to flower; 
the sides of the pots being kept warm with 
moss, and the flowers brought forward by 
daily waterings. All hyacinths grown in 
pots and boxes will require abundance of 
water to make amends for the unnatural 
situation in which their roots are placed. 
After hyacinths have flowered in pots or 
boxes, or in water glasses, the bulbs are 
generally planted in the open ground, and 
being covered with about an inch of soil 
they are left to take their chance. Thus 
treated, the finer kinds generally perish, but 
u 2 
