38 
prefer to peel all of the very high priced ones before 
beginning the sprouting, as they will sprout more 
quickly and can be planted earlier. We must plant early 
to get the most increase. 
PLANTING SPROUTED BULBLETS 
In handling the high priced varieties, we aim to 
sprout all of the bulblets before planting. We examine 
the sprouting packs every two or three days and pick 
out the bulblets which have sprouted. Small tweezers 
are handy for this purpose. The best tweezers we have 
found for this we have made ourselves in a few seconds 
of time, simply by bending the flat wire springs which 
are commonly used on Economy fruit jars in holding 
the tops on when cooking. The ends of these springs 
are brought around to within about half an inch of 
each other, leaving the rest of the spring in a heart 
shape. 
While the sprouted bulblets may be kept for some 
time in the saucers in which wet blotting paper has 
been placed, we like to plant them as soon as pos¬ 
sible, and in fact do not let them accumulate for long. 
Some have said, “It rains so much in the spring, I 
don’t see how you can be sure to get them planted 
when they ought to be.” 
Now this was once rather a hard problem, but it 
really doesn’t bother us much anymore. We take ad¬ 
vantage of the first good weather early in the spring 
to prepare as many beds as possible and during each 
period of good weather we go over them again so as to 
keep them free from weeds and have them ready. Each 
cultivation kills thousands of weeds, so the longer the 
