2 BULLETIN 1459, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
is to put smaller and smaller bulbs on the market. Of course this 
defeats its own ends and effectively keeps down production. 
The tendency has been to turn into cash as soon as possible all 
the bulbs that can be gotten together from any source and to submit 
as small bulbs as the market will take. Of course supplies can not 
be worked up by such methods. Progress is difficult and slow when 
there is such a constant drain on the capital stock. | 
Coupled with commercial destruction has been the additional de- 
terrent of inexperience in the culture. It has been necessary for 
growers to learn the handling of the lily, which is decidedly different 
trom any other item they have ever produced. Above all, it has been 
necessary for them to learn, mostly by bitter and costly experience, 
that the most critical time in the history of any lily is the first win- 
ter. That the Regal, although less difficult to handle during this 
period than most lhes, is no exception has been proved by some 
very serious losses which have occurred. 
TIME OF SEED PLANTING 
The Regal lily is preeminently one to be grown from seed (pl. 1, 
B), for reasons which will become apparent later on. There are 
other ways of propagating it, but no other method compares favor- 
ably in effectiveness. 
The time was when the writer advised planting seed in autumn, 
for good success resulted for three years from fall planting; but 
finally there came a failure, owing, it may be, to the seed germinat- 
ing and then being killed by a subsequent freeze. At all events, 
by spring the seed was rotted and no plants came up. Other grow- 
ers have had similar experiences. Failures with spring plantings, 
properly tended, have not been experienced, and the consensus of 
opinion seems to be that planting as soon in the spring as the ground 
can be worked, or at the time vegetable seed is sown, is the safest 
and best time, all things considered. Some plantings, however, have 
succeeded admirably as late as the middle of June, and fall plant- 
ings commonly have not failed. On Puget Sound late August, Sep- 
tember, and October plantings have all been successful, the seed in 
all cases germinating in the spring. 
SEEDING 
if maximum development is looked for, the seed may be sown 
in fiats early in November, transplanted into 2-inch pots or other 
flats late in January, and carried so until danger of frost is over 
in the spring. (Compare pl. 2, B, and pl. 3, A.) The plants are 
then taken out of the pots and set in the open ground, preferably 
in beds. If a 3-foot bed is planted, seven to nine bulbs will make 
a row across the bed and the rows can be 6 inches apart. If planted 
seven to the 6-inch row, the plants can remain without disturbance 
for two or even three years, or until the bulbs are about the full 
size of 6 inches or more in circumference. | 
Doubtless the most practical method of seeding on an extensive 
scale is to prepare a perfect seed bed under open-field conditions, 
where it is at all possible to do so, and plant the seed in beds. A 
