FLOWERING of Bulbous Plants. These plants will grow and flower in water alone, without any earth, and make a very elegant appearance. We daily see this practised in single roots; but there is a method of doing it with several roots in the same vessel. Take a common small garden-pot; stop the hole at the bottom with a cork, and lace in the cork with putty, that no water can get through; then fit a board to the top of the pot, and bore six or seven holes in it at equal distances, to place the bulbs in; and as many smaller ones near them to receive sticks, which will serve to tie up the flowers. Then fill up the pot with water to the board; and place tulips, jonquils, narcissus's, and the like plants in the root upon the holes, so that the bottom of the roots may touch the water; thus will they all flower early in the season, and be much more beautiful than any pot of gathered flowers, and will last many weeks in their full perfection. After the season of flowering is over, the roots will gradually shrink through the holes of the board, and get loose into the water; but, instead of being spoiled there, they will soon increase in size; so that they cannot return through the holes, and will produce several off-sorts. It is natural to try from this the consequence of keeping the roots under water during the whole time of their blowing; and in this way they have been found to succeed very well, and flower even stronger and more beautifully than when in the ground. They may thus, also, with proper care in the degree of heat in the room, be kept flowering from before Christmas till March or April. It is not easy, in this last manner, to manage the keeping the boards under water, for which reason, it is better to procure some sheet-lead of about four pounds to the foot, and cut this to the size of the mouth of the pot. In this there should be bored holes for the bulbs, and other holes for the sticks; and, in order to keep the sticks quite firm, it is proper to have another plate of lead shaped to the bottom of the pot, with holes in it, answering to those of the upper plate made for the sticks. The sticks will by this means be always kept perfectly steady; and the roots, being kept under water by the upper plate of lead, will flower in the most vigorous and beautiful manner imaginable.—Some have thought of adding to the virtues of the water by putting in nitre in small quantities, and others have added earth and sand at the bottom; but it has always been found to succeed better without any addition.

It may be more agreeable to some to use glass-jars in this last method with the leads, instead of earthen pots. The bulbs succeed just as well as these; and there is this advantage, that the progress of the roots is seen all the while, and they are managed better as to flowering, the supply of water.

By repeated experiments in this way on dried bulbs, and on those taken fresh out of the ground, the former have been found to succeed the best. For those taken fresh out of the ground being full of moisture, will not so soon, upon changing their element, be nourished fully by a new one; and the fibres which they had struck in the ground, always rot when put into the water, and new ones must be formed in their places; so that it requires more time for them to come to flowering. The bulbs themselves will not rot in this manner; but they will never be so strong as those which were put into the water dry, which gradually fill themselves with moisture from it, and regularly plump up. The best method of managing the whole process is this: Place the bulbs at first only on the surface of the water; for thus they will strike out their fibres most strongly. When they have stood thus six weeks, pour in the water so high as to cover them entirely, and keep them thus till they have done flowering.

Sometimes the roots will become mouldy in several parts while they stand above the water, and the cleaning of them is to no purpose; for it will eat and spread the farther, and frequently eat through two or three of their coats. In this case they must be immediately covered with water; when the mould will be flopped, and the roots become sound, and flower as well as those which never had any such distemper. If the roots are suffered to remain in water all the year, they will not decay; but will flower again at their proper season, and that as vigorously as those which have been taken out and dried. The old fibres of those roots never rot till they are ready to push forth new ones. It is found by experience, that the hyacinth, and many other plants, grow to a greater degree of perfection when thus in water than when in the ground. There is a peculiar species of hyacinth called Keyser's jewel; this never, or very rarely, produces seed-vessels in the common way of flowering in the ground; but it will often produce some pods when blown in water.

Mr Millar has intimated, in the Philosophical Transactions, that bulbs set in glasses grow weaker, and should be renewed every other year: but it is found, that, when managed in this manner, and kept under water, at the time of taking them up, they are as large, and some of them larger, than when planted; and if these be dried at a proper season, they will flower, year after year, as well as fresh ones.

Ranunculus and anemone roots have been found to shoot up their stalks very well in this way; but the flowers are usually blasted, which seems to arise from want of free air. Pinks will flower very well in this manner; auriculas also may, with care, be brought to flower, but not strongly. Roses, jessamines, and honeysuckles, may also be made to flower this way, and will thrive and send out suckers; the best pieces to plant, are suckers cut off about three inches under ground, without any fibres. The succulent plants may also be raised this way; for instance, the opuntia or Indian fig. If a fragment of a leaf of this plant be cut, and laid by to dry for a month till it is an absolute skin, as soon as it is put in this manner into water, it begins Flowering-gins to plump up, and soon sends out fibrous roots, and produces new leaves as quickly as it would do in the ground.

This is the more singular in these sort of plants, because in their natural state in the ground, they cannot bear much water. This method of growing in water is not peculiar to the bulbous rooted ones, but others may even be raised from seed by it. A bean or pea, set in this manner, will grow up to its proper standard, and will flower and produce pods which will ripen their seed. The smaller seeds may be also raised in this manner, by the help of wool to support them.

No vegetable transplanted out of the earth into water will thrive kindly; but any plant, whether raised from the root or seed in water, may be transplanted to the earth, and will succeed very well. It may be possible, therefore, from this method of raising plants in water, to come at a better way than is usually practiced of raising some roots in the earth which are subject to rot there; such as anemones, ranunculus's, and hyacinths. A bulb dropped by chance upon the ground, will strike out both stronger and more numerous fibres than those which are planted in the usual way in the ground. On this principle, it may be proper to take out the earth of the bed where the bulbs are to stand at the time of planting them, to such a depth as they are to be placed under it when set for flowering. The bulbs are then to be set in their places, on the surface of this low ground; and to stand there till they have shot out their fibres and their head: then the earth is to be added over them by degrees, till they are covered as high above the head as they are in the usual manner of planting them: thus they would be preserved from the danger of rotting; and their fibres would be much stronger, and consequently they would draw more nourishment, and flower better, than in the common way. The common method of planting these roots renders them liable to be destroyed by either extreme of a wet or a dry season. In the first case, they immediately rot by the abundant moisture they receive; and, in the second, they become dry as a stick, and mouldy; so that they are infallibly rotted by the first rain that falls afterwards.

The directions necessary to the success of the bulbs planted in water are these. When the leaden false bottoms are fixed down tight within two or three inches of the bottom of the vessel (which is only designed to hold the sticks steady which are to support the leaves and stalks), then lay on the lead upon which the bulbs are to rest, placing the notched part opposite to that in the false bottom, as near as the sticks, when placed, will suffer it; then place the bulbs one in each hole, and fill up with water to the upper lead. The bottom of the bulb will then touch the water; and as the water diminishes in quantity, keep it supplied with more up to the same height for a month or six weeks; in which time the bulbs will have short strong fibres. Then fill up the water about half an inch above the surface of the lead; and, by degrees, as the fibres strengthen, and the plume shoots from the head, keep the water higher and higher, till at length the whole bulb is covered. The water is to be kept at this standard till the season for drying them returns.—At the time of planting the bulbs, they must be carefully cleaned from any foulnesses at the bottom, by scraping them with the point of a knife till the found part of the bulb appears; clear them likewise from any loose skins, and even take off their brown skin till they appear white; otherwise this brown skin will tinge the water, and the growth will not succeed so well.

The notches in the side of each lead are intended to give easy passage to the water, that, if there should be any foulness or sediment in it, on shaking it a little it may all run through, and fresh water be put in its place. But this shifting the water need not be done more than once or twice in a winter, as there may be occasion from the foulness; and when this is done, the sides of the vessel should be cleaned with a painter's brush, and rinsed out again, and the bulbs themselves washed, by pouring water on them at a little distance.

At any time when the outer skins of the bulbs dry, they are to be peeled off, that they may not occasion foulness in the water; and if any dust or foul matter be at any time observed swimming on the surface, the method is to fill up the pot or vessel to the rim, and let it run over: this will carry off that light foulness, and the water may afterwards be poured away to the proper standard.

Bulbs of equal bigness should be planted together in the same pot, that they may all have the same benefit of the water. Narcissus's and hyacinths do well together; as also tulips and jonquils, and crocuses and snowdrops.