40 GARDENING WITH BRAINS 1? 



Darwins and the well-named parrot tulips, 

 which look almost as exotic and orchidlike as 

 gladioli. I asked Luther Burbank why he has 

 not got busy intensifying the fragrance of some 

 of the tulips, as he has done in the case of other 

 flowers, like the larkspurs, callas, dahlias, ver- 

 benas, and some lilies, especially the callas, to 

 which he has imparted the odor of the Parma 

 violet, the rarest of violet odors. He answered: 

 "Tulips do not thrive very well in our particular 

 locality, but they can all be made to have fra- 

 grance. The gladiolus," he added, ''will some- 

 time have fragrance." I sincerely hope so. ^ 



This is a matter of very great importance to 

 flower gardeners and breeders. If you have 

 studied the seedsmen's catalogues for the last 

 two or three decades you will know that fra- 

 grant flowers are coming more and more to 

 the front. "It is probably true with regard to 

 fragrance, as with regard to combinations of 

 colors, that there are unrevealed hereditary 

 factors in the germ plasms of most flowers," 

 says Burbank. To him fragrance is "the very 

 soul of the flower." With all its attractive 

 qualities, he found the dahlia "not quite a per- 

 fect flower because it lacks fragrance." "There 

 is no line of experimental work with the flowers 

 that should be more attractive than the develop- 



1 For some very interesting remarks on enhancing the fragrance of 

 flowers see Burbank's vol. ii, p. 80; ix, 23-29, 219, 247; x, 107-110. 

 Read also the summary in Harwood's ISIew Creations in Plant 

 Life (Macmillan), chapter on "Breeding for Perfumes." 



