FOOD AND FLAVOR 193 



In the course of ten or twelve generations a 

 bulb was so developed that the average size is 

 more than twenty times that of the bulbs of the 

 stock of the well-known ordinary chive. 



Thus the new race of chives not only supplies 

 a pink flower which has a very handsome effect 

 when massed in contrast with the characterless 

 flowers of its ancestor, but it is also relatively 

 gigantic in bulb as compared with them. Thus 

 its value as an ornamental plant and its utility as 

 a food plant were enhanced simultaneously, and 

 somewhat in the same proportion. 



These results have been attained by selective 

 breeding, without hybridizing, in the course of a 

 comparatively small number of generations. 



Development has progressed along yet an- 

 other line. The one chief objectionable feature 

 of plants of this tribe, as everyone knows, is their 

 odor. But it is well known also that different 

 members of the onion tribe differ greatly in this 

 regard. In recent years the large sweet Italian 

 and Bermuda onions, which are very mild and 

 relatively odorless, have been introduced, and 

 the possibility of removing from the members of 

 the tribe their objectionable odor has come to be 

 more generally recognized. It appears that the 

 Italian varieties have been rendered odorless by 

 selection from ordinary onions. Some of the 



7— Vol. 5 Bur. 



