LUTHER BURBANK 



The best practical method in eross-pollenizing 

 composite flowers for example, dahlias is to 

 wash away with a spray of water the pollen of 

 the flower head that is to be fertilized, afterwards 

 rubbing its surface gently with the pollenizing 

 head plucked from another plant. Of course you 

 cannot always be sure that the flowers have not 

 been fertilized by pollen from other florets in the 

 same head before you began operations. More- 

 over, as the flowers of the head do not mature 

 all at the same time, but gradually ripen from cir- 

 cumference to center, you must repeat the opera- 

 tion on several successive days to make sure of 

 hybridizing a large proportion of the blossoms in 

 a given head. 



At best there will be an element of uncertainty 

 about the result, but this will give additional zest 

 to the experiment and increase the interest with 

 which you will await the blossoming next season 

 of the plants grown from the seeds of a flower 

 head thus manipulated. 



The dahlia furnishes perhaps the best example 

 of a familiar composite flower with which you may 

 begin your experiments in this somewhat more 

 difficult type of cross-pollenizing. As these flow- 

 ers are at their best late in the fall, there is still 

 abundant opportunity for work during the present 

 season. And notwithstanding the large amount 

 of work that has been done with the dahlia, you 

 may hope to secure very interesting new devel- 

 opments. 



Mr. Burbank has worked very extensively with 

 [196] 



