170 THE PLANT WORLD 



being annually forced into flower during the spring months ; but coinci- 

 dent with the demand has grown the loss from diseased bulbs, which 

 often amounts to from 20 to 60 per cent. In Japan and Bermuda, where 

 the bulbs are mainly grown for the American trade, the ground is used 

 year after year, and it is said to be hard to find a field that is free from 

 disease. It becomes, therefore, of the greatest importance to devise 

 methods either for reducing the percentage of disease or growing them 

 in some other way. Mr. George W. Oliver, an expert in the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, has been turning his attention to the subject of late and 

 with surprising results. He has succeeded in growing flowering plants 

 from seed in six months, and has produced bulbs six inches in circum- 

 ference inside of ten months, each of which produced three flowers above 

 the average size. On this point he says : "So easy is it to raise flower- 

 ing plants from seed that the writer is inclined to believe that should the 

 time come when the disease is more rampant than at present, growers 

 will, when the subject is better understood, be able to raise their own 

 bulbs by a system of greenhouse treatment, and have the plants from seed 

 flowering in pots, ready to be sold within a year." 



In his paper just issued (Bulletin No. 39, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Dept. of Agric.) he gives careful directions for pollinating the flowers of 

 desirable plants, gathering the seeds, and caring for them until the time 

 of sowing. Then follows directions for sowing and germinating the 

 seed and pricking off and caring for the seedlings. A great field is 

 opened in all parts of the United States for experimentation with Easter 

 Lilies from seed, and we would like to urge upon our readers that they 

 take up this subject, for while its practicability is assured, much remains 

 to be ascertained as to the methods that will be effective in different 

 sections of the country. 



Works on Landscape Gardening. — One of our subscribers has requested 

 that we give a list of works of moderate cost on landscape gardening. 

 At our request, Prof. B. T. Galloway, Chief of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, Department of Agriculture, has suggested the following as 

 being likely to meet all reasonable requirements : ' * Garden Making, ' ' 

 Bailey; " Art out of Doors," Van Ransselaer ; "Ornamental Shrubs," 

 Davis; "Landscape Gardening as applied to Home Decoration," May- 

 nard ; ' ' Landscape Gardening, ' ' Waugh ; ' ' Landscape Gardening, ' ' 

 Downing ; ' ' How to lay out a Garden, ' ' Kemp ; ' ' Landscape Gardening, ' ' 

 Parsons ; " How to plant the Home Grounds," Parsons ; " Ornamental 

 Gardening for Americans, ' ' Long. 



Don't Shear Your Shrubs 1 — " The beauty and interest of a shrub surely 

 lie in its natural habit and form," says Prof. L. H. Bailey in Country 

 Life hi America. "When shrubs are sheared into formal shapes the 

 shrub no longer exists for itself, but is only a means of expressing some 



