THE COTTAGE GARDENER. [May 30. 
make room for other things, or by removing them care¬ 
lessly from the flower-beds and borders to the reserve- 
ground .just at the very time when the necessary supply 
of matter, for giving a fine bloom the following year, is 
being stored in the bulbs through the agency of the 
leaves. This explanation reveals the fact—for a fact, 
and a great one too, it certainly is—that the bloom ot 
this spring was not altogether due to the care we might 
have taken of the roots or bulbs since we potted them 
last autumn, but rather to the care that was taken of 
the leaves last May and June. If it were not so, we 
could not bloom them so fine in moss and in water- 
glasses as in a good compost. Therefore, “ it stands to 
reason,” as we say in the country, that it we wish tor a 
good crop of flowers from spring bulbs next year, we 
must ripen off their leaves with great care now; and this 
is the proper time to give liquid manure to such bulbs. 
In the spring border which I mentioned last week, 
the bulbs have" had it all their own way these three, 
four, and five years back; and all those that were forced 
here this winter and spring are now added to them in 
rings as formerly. The first eighteen inches of this 
border is occupied in summer with the blue Nemophila; 
the seeds being sown first in a row four inches from 
the edge, and again fifteen inches from the edge; but 
this cannot be in a continuous row, because the patches 
of bulbs come in the way. Therefore, only the spare 
ground between the bulbs is sown; but the sowing is 
continued in a straight line ; and by the time the bulbs’ 
leaves are all dead—say between midsummer and the 
beginning of July—the two rows of Nemophila spread 
themselves so as to meet in the middle ; and just in this 
middle, and at this very time—the first of July—another 
row of Nemophila is sown to succeed the first two rows, 
which in our case are put in on the first of May, “ or 
thereabouts.” To come in sooner, they might be sown 
as early as the last week in March; but we do not want 
them in bloom here till about the middle of July, and 
we sow accordingly. The sowing for autumn succession 
of this Nemophila succeeds best when done in the first 
week in July. Sometimes there will be a blank of a 
fortnight or three weeks between the time when the first- 
of-May sowing is done blooming and the commence¬ 
ment of that of the July sowing; but as that blank 
occurs near the end of August, the loss is not felt when 
every other bed and border is in full prime. Seven or 
eight degrees of frost does not harm the blue Nemophila; 
and I have seen it peeping out through four inches of 
snow in November, and still full of bloom. 
From early in May, when most of the spring bulbs 
are over, and before the Nemophila comes in, all the 
spare places on this border are occupied with a very 
bright pink annual, only a few inches high, and which 
is so accommodating as to be easily removed from place 
to place until it is in full bloom. I mentioned it the 
other day as one of the catchflies, Silene pendula. There 
is not a brighter plant in England for the flower-garden 
in May than this; and, strange to say, not one of which 
the management is less understood, or, at least, less 
attended to. It sows itself in the autumn; and on very 
poor or very light land it may be removed into the 
flower-beds in Maxell; but on rich, or damp, or heavy 
soil, it should be transplanted from the seed-bed in 
February, and again in March, also in April, and finally 
in May, as the flowers are just beginning to open. All 
this moving is to check the luxuriance of the leaves, 
and may be performed, of course, in the reserve-ground; 
or, what is bettor, make up a bed for it of very poor stuff 
early in the spring in the reserve-garden, and there let 
it remain till the beginning of May, when it may bo 
planted anywhere, either as a rock, vase, bed, or border 
plant. I must really apologise for such minute details 
for what is, after all, a mere weed—but a very pretty one; 
and I have seen it so badly used as to cause its con¬ 
demnation altogether, and that not a hundred miles from 
St. Paul’s, where one would expect to see a better sys¬ 
tem in play. 
The Editor and Mr. Appleby, with their florist friends, 
will think it strange enough to bear that Hex rubrnrurn 
is my favourite red tulip, and that I have a hundred of j 
them on this border, and as many of the following: ! 
Prince de Ligne , fine single yellow; Aimable rouge , a very I 
dwarf single red; Turnsole, orange and yellow ; Marriage 
de ma Fille, variegated; Golden standard, Royal stand I 
ard, and Glaremond, red and rose; and Purpur Croon, ! 
or the Purple Crown. This last is an extraordinary fine j 
tulip of the early and forcing class; and if prices were 
given for the largest and strongest tulips, this would be 
sure to come in first. I am almost certain that this and 
Rex Ruhrorum, with probably many others, should not 
be taken up more than once in six or seven years. No 
doubt the finer tulips of the florist class would soon run 
riot if thus left undisturbed in a congenial soil; but let 
this early flowering class have beds or borders of deep, 
light, rich soil, and depend upon it we shall beat the 
Dutchmen out of the market, for them at least. The 
Due Van Thai, single and double, do not seem to do so 
well, at least they have not improved so much as the 
others. Out of a great number of sorts the above are 
the best for forcing; and really, when one sees how 
simply cast-off bulbs may be usefully employed in a 
garden, it does seem unaccountable how people can 
afford to be so extravagant as to let them slip through 
their fingers. 
Of Hyacinths we flowered about a thousand in this 
border, but not more than twenty or two dozen sorts, 
every one of which were first forced. We also flowered 
six hundred hyacinths, in pots plunged in some beds 
and borders near the house. The latter were as good as 
“ mixed hyacinths” generally are ; but they were beaten 
over and over again by the same sorts which were not ' 
disturbed for the last five years in this spring border; 
and two sorts only revert to the wild state, because, as I 
suppose, the soil does not suit them. Nobody can say 
how long a Hyacinth bulb will live; and I believe I 
have already told that a gentleman in this neighbour¬ 
hood has four bulbs, which he bought in Haarlem in 
1822, and they flowered this year as strongly as ever, 
and his flower-beds and borders are half filled with their 
progeny, besides distributing many bulbs every year to 
his friends and neighbours. I could never make out that 
one hyacinth is better than another for forcing ; and 1 
believe it is all moonshine to say otherwise. It is true 
that the dealers put certain marks to them in their lists 
to show that this sort is more suitable for water glasses, 
that for culture, and so forth; and some years I have 
been so wicked as to take the very opposite sorts for the 
same purposes—from which, and from other actual 
experiments, I am led to believe that we often allow 
ourselves to be swayed more by the dictates of—no-matter- 
what—rather than be guided by natural laws, or the tests 
of practice and experiments. Therefore it is that I shall 
forbear giving a long list of the best hyacinths for spring 
borders and for forcing. 
Not so, however, with the next family—the Daffodils, 
of which there are vast numbers very difficult to deter¬ 
mine or describe as species, or seedling varieties; but for 
forcing I have them reduced to five sorts: the Double 
Roman being the earliest; then Grand Monarch, fol¬ 
lowed by Soleil d'Or, States General, and Bazelman 
Major. These, with six other sorts of Narcissus, which 
do not force well, are all that we cultivate of this family, 
or rather which we do not cultivate at all, but let them 
do for themselves, and that they do right earnestly ; for 
their tops are now so heavy that we are obliged to tie 
them up. 
The single and double Jonquils, of which there are 
smaller and larger varieties, belong to the last family, 
