All ~ With all this discussion of fertilizing the Dutch bulb fields, I've seen no mention of climate. The climate is cool year round and downright cold in Winter (Hans Brinker, et al!) and often quite wet and greatly affected by storms off the North Sea. Spring-flowering bulbs grow well in cool, wet climates that do dry out some in the summer. I can yet vividly recall my last trip to Holland when going around to the various growers to look at their fields. I was wearing virtually every stitch of clothing I had packed in a vain attempt to ward off the bone-chilling cold that was being driven through the layers and into the 'ol bod by winds so strong they were blowing the rain and sleet horizontally across the landscape! If it hadn't been for the steaming mugs of coffee and energy-restoring goodies in the warm kitchens of the growers, I really think that I would have stopped functioning somewhere in the middle of one of those fields until thawing out on one of the rare, warm Spring days . . . Too, the soil in the North polders is pure sand with the addition of some humus in the form of old manure and the covering straw of Winter. Any nutrients applied to the soil (in whatever form) are soon leached by the rains. And, it should be pointed out, that any organic fertilizer applied to the soil can only be absorbed by the plant in inorganic form. That is not to say a healthy soil, filled with an abundance of humus and associated organisms, is not something to be striven for; it is. Many experiments have been done with soils of this nature and, of course, have found that plants are far more robust and growing without many of the common ailments they seem to have in less healthy soil. Best, Dave Karnstedt Cascade Daffodils P. O. Box 237 Silverton, OR 97381-0237 email: davekarn@AOL.com