16 PROPAGATION OF EASTER LILY FROM SEED. 



to keep the sun from warming the soil too much near the surface or 

 else by the substitution of some kind of a shade crop to protect the 

 soil from the sun's rays. This crop would, of course, have to be of 

 such a nature as not to rob the soil of too much of the food and mois- 

 ture necessary for the growth of the lilies. 



Again, the bulbs may be grown in beds, as in the Bermudas, and 

 close enough together to shade the ground to a certain extent. In any 

 event, the cool and fairly moist condition of the surface soil is a most 

 essential point to be observed in the cultivation of the lily. In plant- 

 ing, the depth to which the bulbs should be placed should range from 

 4 to 6 inches, according to the size of 1-year-old bulbs. 



In this, as in every other crop, there are so many details essential 

 to successful cultivation, all differing with the localities, that the above 

 directions must be construed merely as suggestions. Lily farming in 

 the United States is so new that one must not be discouraged if at first 

 failure results from treatment which applied to most other crops 

 would mean success. 



REPRODUCTION FROM SEED. 



A point greatly in favor of raising L. longiflorum^ L. harri&ii, or 

 any of the other forms from seed, to constitute the crop of market- 

 able bulbs, is that from one to two years' time is saved in the opera- 

 tion over the scale method. This in itself will appeal to most people; 

 but it is by no means the best feature of the method, as will be shown 

 later on. 



Plate V, fig. 2, shows bulbs which measured 6 inches in circum- 

 ference at a period only ten months after the seeds germinated. 

 These bulbs each produced three flowers above the average size. Much 

 poorer plants arc sometimes retailed at $1 each. So easy is it to raise 

 flowering 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. 



This would probably seem like a fairy tale to the participants of the 

 lily conference held in London in 1901. One of the papers read at 

 that time states that many species of Lillurn must have from ten to 

 twelve years to develop a flowering bulb from the seed. Elwes, in 

 his Monograph of the Genus Lilium, says of L. longiflonim: "In 

 three or four years at most flowering bulbs will be produced from 

 seed if the young plants are properly treated." This means that by 

 the English method of raising seedlings the plants in flower take five 

 years at most to reach that stage. . . 



