114 CARE OF PLANTS. 



has been outlined and anyone who will follow the 

 practice for three years will be willing to hire 

 additional help, if necessary, to keep up the work, 

 because he will see that it pays. 



When the season's work is over it will be found 

 that the tagged plants show many interesting facts. 

 They show the total number of flowers picked 

 and the number picked each month, and they 

 show too the relation of flower yield to weather 

 conditions if one wishes to carry the matter into 

 this field. Some plants have grown fifty flowers, 

 others as many as one hundred and fifty. Some 

 will give the greatest number of flowers in Decem- 

 ber and January, others in February and March. 

 Here then, are practical points that should at once 

 be taken advantage of. Vigor, health, compact- 

 ness of growth being equal, we would want our 

 plants to yield an many flowers as possible, and at 

 a time when they are worth the most money ; so 

 that of two plants both of which give a hundred 

 flowers, we would give the preference to the one 

 that yields the most flowers during December and 

 January rather than to the one that gives the 

 greater yield during February and March. Of 

 the pedigree stock we would eliminate all plants 

 where the yield the first year dropped below 

 seventy-five flowers. The second year we would 

 eliminate all plants that failed to give more than 

 ninety flowers, and the third year all those that 

 failed to give a hundred good blooms. 



