May 11, 1911. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



y 



13 



Field of Lilium Harrisii at William Bustrin's, Watsonville, Cal. 



PLANTING MIKADO ASTER SEED. 



If Mikado aster seed is sown now 

 and the plants put in greenhouse 

 benches about June 1, will the blooms 

 mature? J, R. S. & S. 



Yes, but they will do much better if 

 planted in well enriched ground out- 

 doors. For early asters indoor culture 

 is all right, but for later crops outdoor 

 culture is much to be preferred. You 

 still have ample time in which to sow 

 aster seed and have them flower before 

 frost; in fact, some varieties can be 

 sown as late as from the middle to the 

 end of June. C. W, 



LILY BULB GROWING. 



The accompanying engraving is from 

 a photograph taken last June of a part 

 of a field of Lilium Harrisii being 

 grown for bulbs by William Bustrin, 

 Watsonville, Cal. The part shown in 

 the picture contained about 2.000 bulbs. 



Mr. Bustrin started in 1906 with two 

 dozen bulbs and from these has in- 

 creased his stock to 10,000 or 1.5,000. 

 He estimates that the bulbs increase 

 about four to five fold annually, the 

 younger bulbs seeming to produce more 

 bulblets than the older ones. His soil 

 is rather heavy and it produces a re- 

 markably solid bulb. The bulbs mature 

 the latter part of October and are then 

 lifted and replanted, the bulblets being 

 of course separated at that time. 



The bulbs be started with were from 

 an old garden and the stock seems en- 

 tirely free from disease. 



His greatest difficulty in growing 

 these bulbs is in obtaining sufficient 

 labor to do at the proper time the large 

 amount of hand work required. In his 

 section fruit is the main industry and 

 the Japanese supply most of the labor. 

 And they generally work for a share of 

 the erop, especially in the case of straw- 

 berries, and ot course this cannot well 

 be arranged in the case of lily bulbs. 

 But he hopes to overcome these local 



difficulties and believes there is an ex- 

 cellent future for the lily bulb growing 

 industry in his section. 



THE HARRISII OF TODAY. 



[Extracts from a paper by .\rth\ir T. Boddiiif,'- 

 ton, read before the New York Florists' Club 

 May S, 1911.1 



I left New York April ."j, arriving at 



Bermuda April 7. The lilies were just 



coming into bloom; hardly any were 



expanded, but the buds were white. 



Disbudding the Lilies. 



The growers have been busy in the 

 onion and potato business this year and 

 they were a little behind with the dit; 

 budding of the lilies. A great deal of 

 care is necessary to produce good bulbs. 

 No weeds can bo allowed to grow more 

 than an inch or two high. If the weeds 

 are allowed to got large, when they aro 

 pulled out they disturb the surface 

 roots of the lily, which will always 

 result in serious injury and failure 

 when the bulb is grown the next year. 

 It is a practice among the Bermuda 

 growers to disbud the lilies just as the 

 buds are whitening. This is done that 

 the plants may be strengthened and 

 that all the nutriment may go to form 

 as large a bulb as possiMe. Fortunately 

 tor me. the weather, which had been 

 rather cool, became suddenly warm and 

 by Palm Sunday the fields were a sight 

 to behold. The next day, April 10. I 

 made photographs of some of the best 

 fields at Columbia Farm, Longbird, 

 Smiths Island and at Westmeath. The 

 lilies were growing strongly and for the 

 most part showed perfect health. When 

 examining them closely, however, there 

 seemed to be about ton per cent of 

 stunted and deformed plants, all of 

 which are being dug out by the more 

 t'arcful growers. 



Rough Handling Causes Deformity. 



Upon my pointing these plants out to 

 R. H. James, he told nie they had not 

 been removed before for the reason 



that in digging out these rogues an 

 equal number of good jdants would be 

 destroyed, and that the plants that were 

 deformed and stunted were really not 

 diseased plants but bulbs which had 

 been injured in digging the previous 

 year, or in the process of planting. Mr. 

 James informed me that they handle 

 lily bulbs as if they were eggs and that 

 rough handling in digging, or by the 

 seedsmen, or by the florists when the 

 bulbs are being potted, is one of the 

 most frequent causes of the stunted and 

 deformed jilants. 



To convince ine that his theory is 

 correct, Mr. James had a number of 

 these deformed plants dug in my pres- 

 ence, lie demonstrated to me that the 

 bulbs^showing these deformities were 

 smaller than when they were planted 

 and that they could never even by acci- 

 dent get packed in the cases as salable 

 bulbs, for the reason that they would 

 not be big enough to grade as even 5 to 

 7-inch bulbs. 



The bulbs of these deformed plants, 

 or, as our friend Louis Schmutz calls 

 them, "kyoudles, " were all afflicted 

 with a i>artial rotting of the root base. 

 Mr. James, who has had thirty years' 

 exiierience in growing bulbs in Ber- 

 muda, tells me that to drop a bulb out 

 of the hand onto even the soft ground 

 will frequently produee an injury suf- 

 ficient to cause this disease of the root 

 base. There seems to be nothing con- 

 tagions in this disease. 



Ward's Disease Being Eradicated. 



The other disease that seems to be 

 afllicting the lilies in Bermuda is what 

 is known as Ward's disease. The 

 symptoms of this disease are as follows: 

 The plant starts to grow healthily, until 

 it gets up a few inches high, when it 

 develops yellowish-brown streaks and 

 spots in the foliage and finally peters 

 out to nothing, or jirodnces a deformed 

 flower. This disease has been almost 

 eradicated, though here and there a 

 plant was to be seen afflicted with it. 

 About the only remedy for this disease 



