14 BULLETIN 962, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
These are invariably vigorous and productive. Each of these basal 
leaves in seedlings tips a bulb scale, and it is found that the plants 
which hold back and build up a large store by the development of 
an abundant strong basal leafage before throwing up their flower 
stalks are the strongest and most productive. 
The plants which have blossomed in the field are exceedingly in- 
teresting from the fact that they bear mostly double-nosed bulbs, 
which when potted will give at the second blossoming two stems 
bearing two to five flowers each. (See fig. 7.) Why this pre- 
ponderance of double-nosed bulbs occurs at this stage so promi- 
nently in field-grown seedlings 1 is Not entirely clear. The condition 
is more eéneral than in pot-grown plants, i. e., those kept in pots 
in the spect thr ough their first flowering. It looks sometimes 
as théush: the stem in the field is of such great diameter as actually 
to forge. a. separation of one side of the bulb from the other, thus 
compelling the formation of two crowns for the next season instead 
of one, as normally obtains in bulbs of the same size developed vege- 
tatively from. small bulbs. 
BEHAVIOR OF THE SEEDLINGS AFTER REPOTTING FROM THE FIELD. 
The methods of handling the seedlings after they are repotted from 
the field have been considered under another heading. Their be- 
havior is most satisfactory. In two years’ experience in handling 
them in this way they have never even appreciably wilted, although 
three or four days have sometimes elapsed between the time of dig- 
ging and the end of the potting. 
i the. handling incident to the transfer from the field to the pots 
some and frequently< call of the leaves are broken off, for the basal 
leaves of seedlings, attached as they are to the tips of the scales, are 
quite brittle: There-is,.consequently, a goodly number of the bulbs 
which are entirely without leafage when ready to pot. No attention 
is paid to this, these bulbs being potted like the others. They in- 
variably come on again in fine condition from the same crown; in 
other words, they are not to be distinguished from the dormant im- 
ported bulbs except that they grow more rapidly. 
Strange as it may seem, these repotted seedlings, although moved 
with care and wilting but little, have to make in large measure a new 
root system after being potted from the field. Plants at all stages of 
growth, even up to full well-advanced buds which will open in 10 
days, can be successfully repotted, but even these make an almost 
entirely new root system. 
For this reason it will not do to subject the plants to heat until 
the pots have filled with roots again, any more than it is permissible 
to subject poorly rooted imported bulbs to such treatment. This 
point should be kept in mind. The grower should realize that he can 
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