LUTHER BURBANK 



the same time you insure the production of a plant 

 from each seed, while when the plants are handled 

 in a mass a good many of them no doubt fall by 

 the wayside. 



When treated according to the first method, 

 many of the plants mature in the second year, and 

 all of them in the third, so that they can be fully 

 tested in that period. Moreover by the third year 

 each bulb has developed quite a nest of bulbs 

 about it, from each of which a new plant may be 

 grown. 



The results already attained with the Watsonia 

 mark this plant as one that must take high place 

 among favorites of the flower garden. What 

 chiefly remains to be done is to make the bulbs 

 more hardy, so that they are adapted to diff"erent 

 conditions of soil and climate. At present the 

 flowers are chiefly grown in California and shipped 

 to the eastern market. But in due course races 

 will be developed that can be grown in the east, 

 and the Watsonia will come to rival the gladiolus 

 and in some respects to outrival it for all the uses 

 to which that flower is adapted. 



Moreover it will perhaps prove possible, 

 through hybridizing the Watsonia with the gladi- 

 olus, to develop new races of plants combining 

 the qualities of each in a way that cannot be defi- 

 nitely predicted. Up to this date, 1914, I have 



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