BURBANK'S HORTICULTURAL NOVELTIES 207 



bility has steadily been increasing, and it may be doubted 

 whether it had already developed all of its possibilities at 

 the time of my visits. Some of the forms have been put 

 upon the market, as for example the " Lemon Giant" which 

 is said to be a cross of the albo-maculata and the hastata. 

 Others are still awaiting selection and recrossing, but are 

 already showing combinations and extremes of character 

 which are new to the family. Among them bulbs of ten 

 inches across and eight pounds in weight, with leaves of 

 proportionate size and vigor, may be mentioned. Each 

 year the finest flowers and the easiest-growing plants are 

 / selected for the new crosses, in order to exclude all combina- 

 tions that would not contribute, in the end, to the main 

 purpose, viz., the production of rich garden plants of easy 

 \ cultivation and rapid propagation. 



The same aim is pursued in the case of most of his other 

 attempts to improve flowering plants. The size and richness 

 of colors and designs of the European hybrids of Amaryllis 

 can hardly be improved, but they are greenhouse plants, 

 requiring a number of years for their development and are 

 slow in their propagation. In the beautiful climate of Cal- 

 ifornia, they may, however, become changed into garden 

 plants by first cultivating the best commercial hybrids in a 

 greenhouse, and placing their pollen upon the ordinary, 

 almost unimproved varieties of the garden. By sowing the 

 crossed seed in the garden, the weakest and most unlikely 

 specimens are soon excluded, and only those remain for 

 repeated crossing which have inherited a sufficient degree 

 of resistance. Then Burbank worked for more abundant 

 bloom, more flowers to the scape, and more scapes from the 

 bulb, an earlier and more lasting blooming period, and lastly, 

 for a more rapid multiplication in the vegetative way. I 

 inspected a bed of fine bulbs of Amaryllis on the farm near 

 his house. Some of them had almost no side bulbs at all ; 



