thes 
THE EASTER LILY IN NORTHERN CLIMATES. 81 
| . foot of stem has formed. With cold storage for a month or two, of 
course, this procedure would be possible. 
It is thought that methods of timing stocks can be worked out for 
the warmer sections of California so that the plants can be brought 
into flower at almost any season with no artificial heat. 
These possibilities, coupled with the further one of holding the cut 
flowers for two or three months in cold storage, suggest many modi- 
fications in handling and in supplying cut flowers for the market. 
RESISTANCE TO COLD. 
A light frost will not injure the Easter lily even when in flower. 
Plants in full flower and full bud have been known to withstand a 
temperature of 28° IF. at night with no permanent injury. <A tem- 
perature of 26° F’., however, killed all the flowers and buds except a 
few barely in view and amply protected by the surrounding leaves. 
On the Gulf coast a drop from growing weather to 20° F. is con- 
sidered fatal to plants in vegetative condition. 
The six years’ experience of the Bureau of Plant Industry has 
proved that this crop when properly handled is safely hardy in the 
climate of Washington, D. C. Proper handling means simply that 
the plants are set late, so as to insure dormancy during the winter. 
There are no data which enable one to judge just what the limiting 
temperatures are, but it has been amply demonstrated over a period 
of six years that the strains of the Easter lily worked with are hardy 
in the climate of Washington, where the normal minimum is 10° F, 
and the temperature commonly goes to zero at some time during the 
winter, 
WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1921 
