154 How TO Grow Cut Flowers. 



— and as we look backward our own experience proves it 

 bej'ond question — that many well known varieties fail 

 to do as well as at first, some having failed altogether, 

 deterioration going on from year to year until they 

 ceased to be a source of profit and had to be discarded. 

 There is little doubt but that the method of reproduc- 

 tion is largely responsible for this state of things, for the 

 reason that nature designed a period of rest for this plant, 

 but when we find a variety suited to our trade or locality, 

 we usually keep it growing three hundred and sixty- 

 five days in the year, and as many years as its consti- 

 tutional vigor will sustain it. That the vigor of all 

 plants of this class is greater the nearer they are to the 

 parent seed, the numerous new seedlings now produced 

 every year fully attest. It has come to be a fixed opin- 

 ■ ion, with those who have given the matter careful study, 

 that so long as plants are renewed from cuttings with- 

 out rest— which, by the way, it seems almost impossi- 

 ble to give to any extent when propagated in the 

 usual way— ^just so long will it be necessary to replace 

 the old plants, every few years, with seedlings. Some 

 of our best growers are raising seedlings each year 

 with this end in view, hoping thus to keep the product 

 fully up to the standard in quantity, qualitj'^ also being 

 increased through ability to keep them in more perfect 

 health. Some varieties^ show a greater degree of vital- 

 ity than others, but with few exceptions the tendency 

 downward can be detected early in their career. Care- 



