LEAD YOUR FRIENDS ANDNEIGHBORS 
— HOW TO DO IT 
Simple as can be. Inexpensive, too. Plant 
healthy, young bulbs of the large size of 
varieties currently winning first prizes in the 
major shows of the world. Soil prepared in 
the fall with heavy applications of well rotted 
cow manure and bone meal is excellent. Avoid 
horse manure in any season. Plant in the sun¬ 
niest location possible. Shelter from strong 
winds is desirable. Preferably in a group 
planting by themselves. 
Do not make them compete with other 
roots of trees, shrubs or weeds. Cultivate 
often and close, keeping surface loose. If the 
garden plot was not fertilized the previous 
fall with a slow acting fertilizer apply none 
whatever until plants are six to eight inches 
high. Use then and every few weeks there¬ 
after until blooming, if you wish, any quick 
acting fertilizer with approximately “4-12-4” 
per cent of content of nitrogen, phosphate 
and potash, respectively. Sprinkle it spar¬ 
ingly (a handful to 25 or more bulbs), several 
inches away from the plants. Scratch it in 
and soak to saturation. If you wish, when 
the buds first emerge from the foliage, substi¬ 
tute a few similar dressings of dried blood or 
a single similar dressing of ammonium sul¬ 
phate. Soak the ground heavily the day be¬ 
fore so that the plant will be saturated and in 
strong growing condition, thus withstanding 
a shock which might otherwise burn off the 
rootlets, turn the foliage yellow and stop 
further growth. Or better still, as often as 
you wish after the bud spikes begin to form 
in the foliage, apply any amount of diluted, 
clear, fresh cow manure. (Have some fresh 
cow manure placed into a heavy sack. Place 
sack in tub or large barrel of water. Will pour 
off or dip out free of sediment. Refill and use 
until liquid loses color.) Now give the soil 
about all the water the drainage condition 
will permit during the blooming season. 
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If you insist on using fertilizer at planting 
time, the most important advice is to avoid 
nitrogen and to keep the fertilizer from con¬ 
tact with the bulb. Use 0-20-0 (superphos¬ 
phate), handful to 3 or 4 ft. of row either 2 
inches below or 2 inches above the bulbs, or 
both. 
Particularly in hot weather, spikes which 
are cut when but one or two florets are open, 
fill out with more open at a time when bloom¬ 
ed indoors in the light but not sunlight, away 
from any breeze, making better exhibition 
spikes and preventing any fading of color such 
as is sometimes found in some of the finest 
orange scarlets, as well as preventing wilting 
of varieties without strong substance. Cut 
stem slantwise to provide larger drinking area 
and place in water at once to avoid air pockets 
in stem. Allow three or four leaves to remain 
on the plant to mature the new bulb which is 
hardly half grown when spike is cut. At least 
six more weeks are needed to mature the bulb, 
except where blooms are from large bulbs of 
very late sorts. 
DON’TS ON DIGGING 
Do not leave part of stem on bulb, cut 
close and burn the tops. 
Do not leave bulbs to dry where frosts can 
reach. 
Do not pile deeply. Quick drying (not in 
hot sunlight) is extremely important to pre¬ 
vent spread of diseases in storage. 
Do not remove roots and old bulb for some 
weeks unless old bulb is soft or shows decay. 
Wait until they separate with ease and 
without tearing the new root base. This 
waiting period is the most desirable time for 
sprinkling your bulbs lightly with napthalene 
flakes. See paragraph on that subject. 
SOIL, ACIDITY, ETC. 
For example, any soil which will produce 
good sweet corn or Irish potatoes is excellent. 
Silt and sand in the composition of your soil 
is valuable. Avoid lime unless needed to cure 
a superacid condition (expressed pH 1 to pH 
4). Likewise avoid, more importantly, super- 
alkaline soils (pH 8 to pH 14). Neutral is 
pH 7, but pH 5 to pH 6 is what you should 
strive to obtain. Your nearest State Agricul¬ 
tural Experiment Station will test samples of 
your soil for acidity rating or will advise you 
how to do it. A well drained soil will have 
much to do with your cropping disease free 
bulbs, particularly if dug after a wet fall. 
INSECT PESTS AND BULB DISEASES 
This subject, fortunately, has again be¬ 
come relatively unimportant to the well in¬ 
formed, who have learned that simple, pre¬ 
ventative measures are better than compli¬ 
cated and sometimes ineffective curative 
measures. 
Likely, your bulbs are clean and need none 
of these treatments, but we are presenting 
this information for those who may need it. 
Inspect your bulbs before planting. If 
doubtful looking, remove entire husk, though 
the husk does function to ward off from the 
planted bulb frost, fungus diseases, grubs 
and wire worms. Do not expect all bulbs to 
look spotlessly clean. They come out of dirt, 
you know, and have other troubles to contend 
with such as occasional bruising near the root 
base, from speed necessary in the removal of 
hundreds of thousands of old bulbs and roots. 
Some bulbs develop bruise marks just from 
non-moving contact in the trays. Commer¬ 
cial grading to sizes does a lot of marring, 
though such injuries affect the salable appear¬ 
ance of the bulb rather than its ability to per¬ 
form. Some growers wash their bulbs or part 
of them at digging time, causing some pitting 
of the bulb surface. Also, napthalene and 
ethylene may cause some gray and brown 
abrasions in some susceptible varieties. How¬ 
ever, we have a very high reputation for 
delivering bulbs rather free from defacement 
from any cause. Variety of colors does not 
necessarily betray mixing of varieties. For 
instance, our Salbach Pink bulbs have always 
come through storage looking about all colors 
of the rainbow. A few specks of disease spots, 
wire worm injury or scab may be gouged out 
without the slightest harm to the plant pro- 
