41 
few inches margin at the sides so that the sides of the 
sack may be folded over and the sack rolled up and 
tied around each end. This makes what is known to 
the florists as a rag doll. 
The rag dolls may then be laid on shelves, preferably 
in a warm room where there is plenty of light. They 
should be kept moist but not wet. They may be kept 
this way for a week or a month, depending on the ease 
and quickness with which the variety germinates. They 
may be so kept till the first bulblets to germinate have 
made roots from one to two inches long. Some of these 
will be broken off in planting, but don’t worry, they will 
make more roots. And anyhow, these first roots are 
probably not of very lasting value, their main purpose 
appearing to be to assist the young plant in its early 
history, for a little later the main feeding roots will 
grow at the base of the new bulb which forms on top of 
the bulblet. 
These bulblets may be planted very thickly in wide 
drills at a uniform depth, covered with half an inch of 
dirt, and the dirt pressed or firmed over them. Then if 
this be covered with half an inch of sand, we have an 
excellent germinating medium, for the soil will be moist 
and mellow beneath the sand. 
CULTIVATION 
If anyone had asked me as to the purpose of culti¬ 
vation, when I was a boy back on the old farm, I would 
unhesitatingly have replied, “To kill weeds.” 
A little later, as my gardening knowledge ad¬ 
vanced, I would have said, “To maintain a dust mulch 
so that the capillarity of the soil will be broken up and 
the moisture retained.” 
