60 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



disappeared. Imported bulbs get heated and rot ; tliey should be 

 grown here, by which means we may get a healthy, hardy bulb. 



Mr. Rand being asked how deep he planted his auratums, 

 answered, eight or nine inches, deeper than most bulbs, and gave 

 a little top-dressing at the time of planting. 



E. W. Buswell alluded to a remarkable hybrid lily exhibited by 

 Messrs. Hovey a few years since, and asked how it was produced. 



Mr. Hovey said the historj^ of this h3^brid would show how easy 

 it is to make a break in any well known plant. Francis Parkman 

 exhibited a very fine specimen of L. auratum, from which Mr. 

 Hovey secured a stamen, believing that he had plants of L. specio- 

 sum in bloom which he could fertilize from the stamen, but finding 

 them all out of bloom, he gave it to his nephew, John C. Hovey, 

 who had some in bloom. The result was a lily as large as auratum^ 

 and of the same shape as sjoeciosum, but he has not succeeded in 

 propagating it extensively enough to put it on the market. Out of 

 ten seedlings, but one was of this remarkable character. The 

 pollen was kept several days. Mr. Hovey said that he had kept 

 lily and other pollen for several weeks, and now has some pffiony 

 pollen which has been kept two years, and which he intends to 

 use. He would like to have the question tested, how long pollen 

 will retain its fertilizing power.* 



Marshall P. Wilder said that the longest time he had ever kept 

 pollen was three weeks. He had a Japan lily coming into bloom, 

 and nothing to fertilize it with, and saved some tiger lily pollen, 

 and after keeping it three weeks, produced by means of it his first 

 lot of seedlings. He always carries a camel's hair pencil in his 

 pocket to use in transferring pollen, and had fertilized a lily from 

 pollen which had remained in the brush for some days. 



The President announced that this would close the series of 

 meetings for discussion, for the present, as members of the society 

 generally, would be fully occupied in their grounds ; but he hoped 

 that, after the pressure of spring work was over, the discussions 

 might be resumed, as subjects are from time to time presented. 



*In the " Revue Ilorticole " for 1873, p. 245, may Tje found a record of the successful 

 fertilization of Ccratozamia Mexicana, by M. llouUot, in 1872, with pollen which he 

 gathered in the hot-houses of the Museum, in 18G7. — Ed. 



