FIXING AN IDEAL. Ill 



the work is intelligently undertaken and carried 

 out it is astonishing what power is put within 

 the grasp. 



It is seldom that violet growers average more 

 than fifty flowers to the plant for the season. 

 There is no good reason why this number should 

 not be increased to one hundred or even one hun- 

 dred and fifty flowers per plant without additional 

 room, additional heat, additional fertilizers, or ad- 

 ditional work of any kind except in the care nec- 

 essary to keep up the stock by proper selection. 

 How then should this selection be started, and 

 how should it be continued in order to reap the 

 full benefit from it ? To start at the beginning, 

 it will be found that the first stock of plants, no 

 matter where obtained, will show differences : 

 Some will be small, some large ; some will give 

 long-stemmed flowers, others flowers with short 

 stems; some will show a tendency to throw flow- 

 ers off in color; some will have a straggling habit 

 of growth, others will be compact, with large 

 leaves on long petioles. As the season for flower 

 picking arrives these plants should be carefully 

 gone over and the grower should fix in his own 

 mind his ideal or type. It does not take long to 

 learn what plants more closely approximate the 

 type. Out of one thousand plants there may not 

 the first year be more than a hundred that show 

 the characteristics he is after. We cannot put 

 down in black and white what these characteristics 



