6 
ELLIOTT NURSERY COMPANY, PITTSBURG, PA. 
flowering bulbs on an average with about an inch 
and a half of soil, and lilies are planted about six 
inches deep. Years ago, when I used to plant bulbs 
myself and found that the trowel-handle soon 
blistered my hands, I used a tool for planting 
bulbs. It wits made by taking a piece of brass or 
wrought-iron pipe two feet long and an inch and 
a half or two inches in diameter. One end of this 
was ground to a sharp cutting edge; on the 
other end was placed a fitting, which, I believe, 
is called a “cross”; in two openings of this cross 
were placed short pieces of pipe for handles; in the 
pipe was placed a round piece of wood, a little 
smaller than the pipe and a few inches longer, and 
a nail was driven in one end of this to keep it from 
falling out. This tool was used by pressing the 
sharpened end of the pipe into the ground the depth 
desired to plant the bulb; it was then removed and 
carried with it a piece of sod with the soil; the bulb 
was then dropped into the hole, the tool placed on 
top of it and the soil pressed back into the hole by 
pushing the round stick. In moist ground (and I 
always wait until we get sufficient rain to make 
it moist before planting), bulbs can be planted 
very rapidly. If my memory serves me, I used to 
plant three or four thousand a day with it. The 
tool cannot be used in rough, hard ground. It is 
extremely satisfactory for planting bulbs on the 
lawn, as it leaves no mark whatever in smooth sod. 
Of the great variety of spring-flowering bulbs, 
(he daffodils or narcissi are the most desirable and 
beautiful; their beautiful forms and coloring and 
graceful habit leave nothing to be desired, as they 
are easily grown and as much at home in the grass 
as dandelions. Of course the delicate, high-priced 
sorts must not be used, but there is no lack of 
cheap sorts that are entirely satisfactory. The 
poet's narcissus can be bought for less than five 
dollars per thousand. They are charming flowers, 
blooming in May after almost all other bulbous 
flowers are gone, but sometimes they will not bloom 
at all. A few years ago my brother planted ten thousand for cut-flowers and hardly got a dozen flowers a year. After a few years 
he was disgusted and plowed them under. Much to his surprise, they bloomed profusely the following spring. My explanation is 
this: Narcissus poeticus 
bulbs do not like a wet 
soil, and the plowing of 
the ground during the 
summer gave the soil a 
chance to dry out and the 
bulbs to ripen. Narcissus 
poeticus will not bloom on 
my ground, which is also 
wet; neither will Nar¬ 
cissus alba plena odorata, 
but both do well on dry 
ground and are excellent 
for steep stony banks or 
for the open woods where 
the ground is dry. Nar¬ 
cissus poeticus ornatus, the 
early variety of the poet’s 
narcissus, increases rap¬ 
idly and blooms profusely 
every spring on my 
ground, which is exces¬ 
sively wet in some places. 
So do Emperor and Em¬ 
press, Barri conspicuus, 
Golden Spur, Pnnceps, 
Alba Stella, Cy- 
S i r Watkin, 
Phoenix and Bi- 
all of which are 
too 
Trumpet Narcissus naturalized in a meadow near Pittsburg 
Snowdrops clustering around a tree trunk 
1' igaro, 
nosure, 
Orange 
florus, 
desirable and not 
expensive to use in 
quantity for naturalizing. 
On my own grounds I 
have used some twenty 
