ORIGINATING NEW VARIETIES. 103 
they may be taken up and dried within a few weeks 
after the flower stems are cut. The bulbs are then 
replanted in October, and in three years from sets they 
will attain marketable size. An average yield is about 
60,000 full-sized bulbs to the acre. 
TUBEROSE. 
This is a great industry in the United States, the pro- 
duction at present in one section in a radius of twenty 
miles around Magnolia, N. C., amounting annually to 
about 6,000,000 bulbs, 75 per cent. of which is ex- 
ported to Europe. Propagation is by offsets. From 
North Carolina southward, small sets will make large 
flowering bulbs in one season; northward it requires 
two seasons. 
The ground is prepared as for a crop of potatoes. 
Planting is done in drills 30 inches apart, the sets being 
placed 4 inches apart, 3 inches below the surface. The 
crop must be cultivated constantly. After frost, the 
bulbs are lifted, their tops cut to within two inches of 
the Lulb, and they are then placed on shelves or in 
trays to remain four to eight weeks to dry or cure. On 
asmall scale the roots may be tied in bunches and hung 
upon rafters to dry. 
ORIGINATING NEW VARIETIES. 
Possibilities in Plant-Breeding.— Mankind is 
awakening to a fuller realization of the grand possi- 
bilities of wonderful accomplishment presented in the 
domain of plant-breeding, or the amelioration of useful 
and ornamental types of plants. 
The world has made creditable progress in “this 
science within the past quarter of a century, but the 
work which has thus far been accomplished, represents 
