154 PRACTICAL PLANT PROPAGATION 



12. We do not yet know whether all seedlings put out in the Spring 

 will survive the first Winter without being reset, though some of them 

 surely will. We will know more about that next Spring. * 



13. Crosses of Harrisii giganteum, Formosum giganteum, and 

 multiflorum giganteum, have all produced good stocks, as has also For- 

 mosum Harrisii, and even selfed plants have given good results. 



14. Push the stock along all the time with plenty of fertility and 

 good moisture conditions. 



15. The seedlings will be uneven, but then, so are imported stocks. 



16. If the grower will select the type of plant that suits him best 

 from his batch of seedlings he can very soon work up a stock from a 

 single bulb by vegetative reproduction, but mass selection is feasible. 



17. Bulbs set 6 inches to 8 inches deep in suitable soil will give a 

 propagation of 6 to 12 stem bulblets. Normally, the setting should 

 be 4 inches to the top of the bulb. The object of deeper planting is 

 to increase the propagation. 



PROPAGATING THE MADONNA LILY (L. candidum) 



Dr. Griffiths, in The Flower Grower, for December, 1920, writes on 

 this subject as follows: 



"This really is one of the easiest of Lilies to grow. It is on a par 

 with Lilium longiflorum, L. myriophyllum, and L. tigrinum. It is like- 

 wise most readily propagated by several methods. 



" Seed. It is seldom that seed is produced, but when a set is obtained 

 germination is readily accomplished. I have gotten seed but once, 

 but occasionally hear from people who do get it. It is suggested to 

 those who have clumps of this Lily, that they hand-pollinate with its 

 own pollen and with that of some other species. Seedling strains may 

 give us greater vigor than the stocks which have been propagated so 

 long vegetatively. 



"Scales. This is the method almost universally employed in in- 

 creasing the stock of this species. On Puget Sound we scale the bulbs 

 usually in July, shortly after the plants have flowered, and plant the 

 scales in beds as we do Tulips, one or two to the inch in rows six inches 

 apart, where they remain two years undisturbed. They are covered 

 two niches deep. The resulting bulbs begin to flower the third year. 



"If one has a greenhouse in any region where the temperatures run 

 high in Summer, the propagation can be much accelerated. We have 

 been able to get the old scales all transferred into bulblets between 

 June 20 and October 1, by keeping them on moist sand under the 

 benches of the greenhouse. The space under the benches was closed 

 in by burlap. The scales were kept in precisely the same atmospheric 

 condition as required for the propagation of Hyacinths except that 

 they were laid on the sand under the benches instead of on wire trays . 



* Dr. Griffiths comments on this point in The Florists' Exchange of March 12, 1921, as 

 follows: "The grower who, instead of forcing these seedlings into flower during the 

 Winter, wishes to get up stocks to be handled vegetatively, i. e., wishes to grow bulbs 

 under out of door conditions, has his choice of at least two methods of procedure. 

 He can mulch (about Nov. 1, in the climate of Washington, D. C.), heavily with some 

 coarse litter such as marsh hay or cornstalks, which is to be gradually removed in 

 the Spring. The plants will lose their tops, but this does not seem to matter. The 

 other method is to dig all the seedlings Nov. 1, cut the tops off, and the roots might 

 as well be cut off too. The stocks may then be reset immediately four inches deep 

 to the top of the bulb and mulched lightly with strawy or fine decomposed manure, 

 which is to be left on the beds." 



