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Updated: May 29, 2025
Sand is preferable to most kinds of soil, because it never bakes, and not only this, but it shows where the rows are, so that if it becomes necessary to hoe the surface before the young plants appear it can be done without danger of injury to the bulblets. The bed should have frequent stirring and perfectly clean culture.
If there is reason to think the bulblets too dry at planting time, they may be put into sacks and soaked in water a day or two. In fact, however well they may have been kept through the winter, it is not a bad plan to soak them before planting.
As soon as the weeds start on the ridges, they should be lightly stirred with a steel rake. A fine harrow or weeder may be used on large plantations, if preferred. This stirring destroys the weeds over the rows before the bulblets are fairly sprouted. A little later, when the shoots are nearly ready to come through the ground, go over the rows again with the steel rake, and level them down.
The bulblets should be screened through sieves of different meshes, so as to have each size by itself, in order that the growth may be uniform. Sow them very thick in the row, from one hundred to three hundred to the foot, and have the bulbs average half an inch in diameter.
This process is repeated year after year, the bulbs becoming gradually thinner and less vigorous, the spikes diminishing in height and the flowers in size, until, by and by, the grower comes to the conclusion that his bulbs have "run out." Now follows the experience of one who saves the bulblets, or a portion of them. He plants them, and they make bulbs, mostly too small to bloom.
Spherical or conical bulbs are more vigorous, and therefore better for this purpose, than flat ones of the same sort. There is a difference in the productiveness of varieties in regard to seed, as well as bulblets, some yielding little or none, while others bear freely, but in the latter case it is not best to permit the bulbs to ripen the greatest possible amount.
They settle into a more solid mass than large bulbs, and if too deep they are liable to start into growth. This should be carefully guarded against. Small quantities of bulbs may be stored in half-bushel baskets, from two to four inches deep, according to size, and hung up in the cellar. Bulblets may be packed in boxes or barrels without regard to depth.
They kept all right and could have been kept until spring with sufficient covering, but they lost their luster and became dingy and unattractive. Bulblets should not be dried. The reason for this will be given elsewhere. Cleaning and Grading.
If all the blooming sizes of the same variety are planted at the same time, they will bloom in regular succession, the largest first and the smallest last. Small bulbs, too small to bloom, bulblets, and seed, should be planted early in order to have plenty of time to make their growth. About the first of April is a suitable time in the latitude of Northern Ohio.
When a few bulblets of some choice variety are to be kept by themselves, it is a good plan to wrap them in paraffin paper, and enclose them in a paper bag, which may be marked to show its contents. Packing Bulbs for Shipment. When bulbs are well cured, the chief danger in shipping is from frost, and this is much greater in transportation by freight than by express.
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