First there is the eager looking over the autumn catalogues and the well-considered selection of your bulbs. If your purse is long enough to warrant it, you may put on your list the costly named varieties of your favorite colors among the hyacinths; if otherwise, you may still have the satisfaction of making a dollar or two go a long way; since after putting on your list a few choice bulbs, you get, at the department store, oceans of five-cent hyacinth bulbs, and, taking your chance as to color, have the added pleasure of the surprises thus secured.
As the other desirable bulbs are comparatively inexpensive, you can finish your list from the catalogue, and thus have as many as you desire.
The Oxalis has, presumably, been saved over from last winter's stock, and so, too, have the best of the Freesias. These are, no doubt, well-started about the first of September.
Early in October some of the newly bought Freesias and some of all the other bulbs may be planted. The remainder may be potted in instalments, two or three weeks apart, the last as late as December. You may use for hyacinths, at a pinch, quite small pots—say four-inch ones; but success is more certain in the five or six-inch sizes. The smaller bulbs may be planted in clumps in such sized pots as you like, about two inches apart. You may use prepared soil furnished very reasonably by the florist, or, if preferred, prepare it yourself after this formula: one-half mellow garden loam, one-quarter well-rotted cow manure, and for the remainder use leaf-mold, well-pulverized peat, and a good trowel-full of fine beach sand. Bulbs, though needing rich food, should never come directly in contact with their manure supply.
In potting the larger bulbs leave about quarter of an inch above ground, but entirely bury the smaller ones.
The big bulbs should be pressed firmly down, as they have a way of working up from the covering soil.
Water well, and set in a cool, dark cellar. The oxalis and freesia sprout more quickly, and must not be left to send long pale shoots up in the dark, but the hyacinths and narcissi, though promised in six weeks, are often two months, and even longer, getting ready to come into the light.
This should be done with caution, as they must first be greened in a shaded window, and not until later exposed to the direct beams of the sun. They may be given water in moderate supplies, and I have sometimes found a weekly allowance of "Bowker's Flower Food" desirable.
My own selection of house bulbs usually comprises oxalis, freesia, the narcissi, hyacinth, and tritelia; many other desirable ones are to be had, but with a good supply of the above-named varieties, including a generous number of such inexpensive bulbs as the Paper-white Narcissus, and the Yellow "Daffies," one may count on a sweet succession of bloom from Christmas to May-time.
In this connection I add a reprint of a paper long ago published in the "American Garden."