CONFERENCE ON BULB-GROWING IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 299 
Board of Agriculture, there appears sufficient encouragement to give 
bulb-growing a thorough trial, where soil and other conditions are 
suitable for it. Incidentally, and without clearly foreseeing the issue, 
the present juncture has, indeed, been most wonderfully prepared 
for by many hybridizers and researchers during the five -and -twenty 
years prior to the outbreak of war, and as the result of their efforts a 
large number of strong, vigorous, healthy, marketable varieties of our 
various bulbs, and particularly of Daffodils and Tulips, have been 
successfully produced, both horticulturally and commercially, and put 
upon our markets. 
The selection of Tulips for commercial growing has further been 
much simplified by the Society's trial of varieties in 1914 and 1915 at 
its Gardens at Wisley, whereby those most suitable for cultivation in 
this country have been selected from the great mass of varieties which 
before the trial was so confusing. 
The Show has been to myself most interesting, recalling as it has 
done sojourns in Asia Minor, Syria, Cyprus, and the Lebanon, on my 
way to Damascus, where I saw some of such bulbs in wild luxuriance, 
as on the highlands over Smyrna, which appeared to be carpeted with 
wild Cyclamen, to see which I even braved the brigands ; and among 
the exhibits in the Show I observed an interesting bulb to sufferers 
from gout and rheumatism — the one specific for the former — 
Colchicum. 
I have now the privilege of asking Mr. Arthur Sutton to address 
you. 
Mr. Arthur W. Sutton, remarking that the cultivation of hardy 
flower bulbs was a comparatively new industry in this country, and 
that it showed an enormous increase during the past twenty years, 
claimed that home-grown bulbs yield better cut flowers for market 
purposes than do foreign bulbs. There are numerous districts — 
notably in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Wiltshire, Somerset- 
shire, Devonshire, Cornwall, Anglesea, many parts of Ireland, and 
the Channel Islands — where excellent Daffodil bulbs are grown. 
Most of these places, he remarked, have the benefit of frequent sea- 
breezes, which play no inconsiderable part in the production of good 
bulbs. 
The leading growers are laying down stocks of choice varieties to 
meet the demand which they confidently anticipate in the near future, 
and have invested enormous sums of money in the purchase of the 
very best. Mr. Sutton claimed that British bulbs have better con- 
stitutions than those of Continental production, and, as they usually 
have several shoots, instead of the single shoot of the foreign bulb, 
are much more floriferous. 
He reminded the meeting that several British growers had raised 
more new varieties than all the foreign growers put together. The 
home-raised seedling Tulips — the beautiful Cottage and Darwin 
varieties — surpassed in beauty of form and colouring all the 
Continental varieties. In conclusion, Mr. Sutton expressed his 
