We all admire the bright bulb flowers that are among the first to blossom in the spring. These mostly come from Holland, or at least attain their perfection there. We have just spoken of the importance of planting flowers at such a time that they may live their career when our climate is most like that from which they come. In the case of bulbs, spring and early summer is the most favorable time for them in this country, and fall is the proper time for planting. The exact time in the fall to plant, how to plant, what bulbs to plant, when to put a winter overcoat on the bed, and other details, I will leave for Mr. Hunn to tell in the following Leaflet. He has had many years' experience in the management of flowers, and I advise you to read carefully what he says. [Illustration: _Fig. 368. A bulb bed at the school house._] LEAFLET LXXIX. A TALK ABOUT BULBS BY THE GARDENER.[100] BY C. E. HUNN. [100] Nature-Study Quarterly, October, 1899. [Illustration] Perhaps you would like to hear from the gardener. Your Uncle John has told you something about preparing a bed for your plants. His advice is very good; but the bulbs we are to talk about are like those notional children whom he mentions and they do not want tallow candles for any part of their meal. You should know that bulbs do not want to come into direct contact with the stable fertilizer. They want the fertilizer below them where the feeding roots may nibble at it when the bulb is hard at work developing the leaves and flower. You know that all the leaves and the flowers were made the year before, and the bulb simply holds them until the new roots have formed. No kind of treatment will make a bulb produce more flowers than were formed in the year it grew (last year); but the better the treatment the larger and finer the flowers will be. If I wanted to make a bulb bed, I should choose, if possible, a sandy soil and throw out the top soil to the depth of six inches. Then I should put into the bottom of the bed about two inches of well rotted manure and spade it into the soil. Then I should throw back half of the top soil, level it off nicely, set the bulbs firmly on this bed, and then cover them with the remainder of the soil; in this way you will have the bulbs from three to four inches below the surface. It is dark down there and in the fall months the top of the ground is cooler than at the depth of five or six inches and the top of the bulb will not want to grow, while the bottom, which is always in a hurry, will send out roots, to push out the leaves and flowers the next spring.