TRANSPLANTING BULBS. 
37 
The common bulbs, such as Snowdrops , Crocuses , &c., may be 
left two or three years untouched ; but at the end of that period 
take them up, to separate the offsets and small roots from the 
mother plants. You can replant them immediately, taking care 
to thin the clumps, and separate each root six inches from its 
neighbor, that they may rise healthy, and throw out fine blooms. 
Narcissuses , Jonquils , and Irises, may also remain two years 
untouched; but if annually taken up, they will flower finer, and 
for these reasons. 
By taking up your bulbs as soon as their leaves and stems de¬ 
cay, it not only allows you to separate the offsets, which weaken 
the parent bulb, but it prevents their receiving any damage from 
long drought, or the equally destructive moisture of heavy rains, 
which would set them growing again before their time, and ex¬ 
haust them. The two or three months in which they are laid by 
contributes to their strength, by allowing them that period of 
complete rest. 
The autumn-flowering bulbs, such as the Colchicums , the Au¬ 
tumnal Crocus , the Yellow Autumnal Narcissus , &c., should be 
taken up in May or early in June, when they are at rest. Trans¬ 
plant them now, if you wish to remove them ; part the offsets, 
and plant them six inches apart. If you keep them out of the 
ground, put them in a dry, shady place, till the middle of July 
or August, when you must plant them again, to blow in the au¬ 
tumn. 
Be careful to take up bulbs as soon as the leaves decay. If 
they are incautiously left in the ground beyond that period, they 
begin to form the bud for the next year’s flowers ; and the check 
of a removal would injure them. They might produce flowers 
in due time, but they would be weakly* 
The little offsets will not flower for a year or two. They may 
