8 BULLETIN 1082, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The grower, of course, will be governed in his planting by the 
stock which he has on hand. If his turn-off of bulbs has been close, 
his planting stock will be proportionally reduced in size. It will 
take a little time for him to determine just where the dividing line 
lies between his merchantable stock and a sufficiency of advantageous 
sizes for planting. 
DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTING MATERIAL. 
As stated on another page, the object of the close sizing of planting 
stock is to get an even distribution of plant material over the ground. 
The sizing in the experimental work considered here has been an 
approximation, possibly closer than will obtain in commercial plant- 
ing, but by no means exact. 
In order to test the closeness of the approximation the following 
tabulation was made at the time of planting in 1919. The variety 
used was Artus. 
1 bushel of bulbs under 5 centimeters planted 50 to a row covered 137 rows. 
1 bushel of bulbs of 5 centimeters planted 35 to a row covered 119 rows. 
1 bushel of bulbs of 7 centimeters planted 21 to a row covered 129 rows. 
1 bushel of bulbs of 8 centimeters planted 14 to a row covered 135 rows. 
The test was made in the field at planting time with the stock as 
sized in the bulb house. Exact comparability would require that 1 
bushel of bulbs should plant the same number of rows of all sizes. 
Of course, perfect uniformity with such inequalities in the sizes 
employed can not be attained. 
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE BED SYSTEM OF PLANTING. 
In the United States there is always an effort to eliminate as far 
as possible hand labor in all farming operations. We perform by 
machinery many operations which the foreigner finds it cheaper to 
do by hand. One of the stock arguments against the bulb business 
in the United States has been the expense entailed by the very large 
proportion of hand labor required. The bed system means hand 
labor. (PI. VI, Fig. 2.) Whether the bulb business in this country 
can be divorced from it remains to be determined. It is not the 
purpose of this bulletin to decide which is the better way, but simply 
to show that bulbs have been produced in this country, to tell how 
the growing has been done, and to point out the fundamental opera- 
tions involved in their production. To determine whether there is 
a method superior to the bed system will require much experiment, 
and the question may not be settled for years; indeed, it would not 
be well to try to establish at this time any degree of finality in 
methods. 
In the use of the bed system a maximum quantity of material can 
be grown on a given area. The production of bulbs as practiced 
