64 THE BOOK OF THE DAFFODIL 



first three or four years are over, new varieties may be 

 looked for and enjoyed every year. 



Note that secondary crosses may be effected — such as 

 those between Poeticus and IncomparabiHs (which is 

 itself a cross between Poeticus and Pseudo-Narcissus) — 

 and may be expected to give additional brilliancy to the 

 scarlet or orange colouring in the offspring. 



Such a large subject as that of the raising of new 

 varieties can only be lightly touched upon in a handbook 

 such as this, but one hint of great importance may be 

 added to what has been already said. In selecting the 

 varieties on which cross-fertilisation is to be practised, 

 only those flowers which are of particularly fine form 

 and of good substance in the perianth segments should 

 be chosen, or at least one of the parents should have a 

 very substantial perianth. Now that we have so large 

 and so rapidly increasing a number of handsome red- 

 cups, the efforts of hybridisers should be directed to 

 obtain what is far less common as yet in this class of 

 flowers, viz., a really good, substantial, well-shaped 

 perianth. We do not want so many of those red-cupped 

 flowers that only look well at a little distance, or when 

 massed together in a bunch ; a brilliant cup is an excel- 

 lent thing, but it is not enough unless associated with 

 a perianth which bears examining, critically and closely. 



Efforts should also be made by seed sowing and 

 selection to obtain White Trumpets and early Self- 

 Yellow Trumpet Daffodils of better constitution than 

 those we now have. 



