y are well fed you cannot
expect large crops of fine flowers from them. And they must be well
supplied with nutritious food each year, because the crop of next season
depends largely upon the nutriment stored up this season.

If barnyard manure is not obtainable, substitute bonemeal. Use the fine
meal, in the proportion of a pound to each yard square of surface. More,
if the soil happens to be a poor one. If the soil is heavy with clay,
add sand enough to lighten it, if possible.

The ideal location for bulbs is one that is naturally well drained, and
has a slope to the south.

Unless drainage is good success cannot be expected, as nothing injures a
bulb more than water about its roots. Therefore, if you do not have a
place suitable for them so far as natural drainage is concerned, see to
it that artificial drainage supplies what is lacking. Spade up the bed
to the depth of a foot and a half. That is--throw the soil out of it to
that depth,--and put into the bottom of the excavation at least four
inches of material that will not decay readily, like broken brick,
pottery, clinkers from the coal-stove, coarse gravel--anything that will
be permanent and allow water to run off through the cracks and crevices
in it, thus securing a system of drainage that will answer all purposes
perfectly. It is of the utmost importance that this should be done on
all heavy soils. Unless the water from melting snows and early spring
rains drains away from the bulbs readily you need not expect flowers
from them.

After having arranged for drainage, work over the soil thrown out of the
bed until it is as fine and mellow as it can possibly be made. Mix
whatever fertilizer you make use of with it, when you do this, that the
two may be thoroughly incorporated. Then return it to the bed. There
will be more than enough to fill the bed, because some space is given up
to drainage material, but this will be an advantage because it will
enable you to so round up the surface that water will run off before it
has time to soak into the soil to much depth.

I do not think it advisable to say much about plans for bulb-beds,
because comparatively few persons seem inclined to follow instructions
along this line. The less formal a bed of this kind is the better
satisfaction it will give, as a general thing. It is the flower that is
in the bed that should be depended on to give pleasure rather than the
shape of the bed containing it.

I would advise loc