INTRODUCTION. 
It is twenty-six years since I began to collect the native bulbs, plants 
and seeds of the Pacific Coast of the United States, and I need no intro- 
duction to most of my customers. It has always been my endeavor to 
supply the very best that the season would allow, and I would rather: 
at any time expend more than a thing brings me, than to disappoint 
those who have entrusted me with their orders. 
It is, however, only just to me that I should call the attention of my 
customers to the great difference between such a business as mine and the 
culture of the great staples, such as Narcissus, Hyacinths and Tulips. 
In the latter case, if for any reason, climatic or other, a failure occurs 
with one dealer or in any section, it is exceptional if there are not sufficient 
elsewhere to make good the deficiency. 
With the so-called "California bulbs" it is very different. The world's 
annual supply of a large part of them comes from me, and if 
my garden stocks are all sold out, or if the season in some section is 
bad, or by sickness or accident some of my collectors are prevented- from 
making their collections in the limited time in which the work can be done, 
it is only by a great effort that I can make good the deficiency. 
I have trained men whom I can and do dispatch to points where fail- 
ures have occurred, and I do usually finally secure a thing; but to fully ap- 
preciate the difficulty of the work, you must take into consideration the im- 
mensity of the field in which I operate. 
It is about six hundred miles from Ukiah to Los Angeles, three hun- 
dred and fifty to Nevada, six hundred to Southern Oregon, a thousand to 
either Eastern Oregon or the Puget Sound region; and from each of those 
localities some annual collected supplies must come. I have a well trained 
corps of local collectors, and failures are exceptional, but with so many 
varieties some will occur. The time of my special trained collectors is 
mostly required to get those things which grow where I have no local col- 
lectors, and it may happen that to make good some failure of a local man, 
would endanger equally important collections that they are engaged in. 
Very often the collector must penetrate country where there are no rail- 
roads, and not so seldom where there are no roads of any sort. 
When all this is considered, I feel that it is much to my credit that in 
1904, which was an unfavorable year, I secured 91 per cent of all bulbs 
ordered and 9 4 per cent of standard varieties. Is the record in staple bulbs 
much better? 
AS TO SUPPLIES. 
My bulbs come from many sources, but my past experience justifies 
me in assuring customers that their orders will almost certainly be filled 
with good bulbs. In 1904 I filled 94 per cent of the orders for these sorts. 
I grow stocks in excess of the annual sales of many things and in those 
cases use only the best, which is a very fine grade. 
In other instances my garden stocks insure good bulbs. 
There are species which grow to such perfection in the wild state that 
I much doubt if they will ever do as well in cultivation. These I always 
collect in ample quantities and sell the finest grades and plant the surplus, 
It is the general belief that bulbs are usually collected before they are 
properly ripened. This is by no means true, although in the earlier days, 
when collectors were ill trained, it sometimes was. Very few wild bulbs 
are dug until thoroughly ripened, and probably the finest bulbs I have ever 
sent out were collected. 
