THE PRODUCTION OF NARCISSUS BULBS 21 
these stocks. The real trouble has been lack of knowledge of what 
constitutes good stock. In one case a grower deliberately selected his 
largest bulbs with two to four or more noses to send to the florist. 
They were selected from stock left in the ground three years. When 
forced these bulbs produced four or more shoots each and but little 
blossom. The bulbs of smaller size which this grower planted for 
propagation flowered well, and similar bulbs that were single nosed 
sent to another florist were pronounced good. 
A dividing bulb (three or four nosed) of a trumpet daffodil has 
decided advantages, for it will usually give two flowers, but not 
necessarily so with the Paperwhite Grandiflora. Here, from the point 
of view of the florist at least, the most desirable is a maximum-sized 
bulb which has not yet marked off its future excessive divisions. 
Usually this is a split or slab rounded off by one or at most two years 
of culture under good conditions. A tight two-nosed bulb will often 
throw two flower spikes, but when three or four small divisions are 
seen when the bulb is cut across it is common for none of them to 
blossom. 
CHINESE SACRED LILY 
Little is known in this country about the methods of production 
of this variety. Under the treatment given it here the bulbs are 
commonly indistinguishable from those of Paperwhite Grandiflora; 
that is, they become rounded off, hard, and firm instead of the angular 
and mostly flabby clumps of the imported stocks. The indications 
are that they are produced in China on rather heavy soils, with an 
abundant supply of moisture. A Florida grower has recently pro- 
duced bulbs very comparable with the imported stock. The key 
to the riddle, it is said, is again plenty of fertility. 
VARIETIES REQUIRING SPECIAL CARE IN HANDLING 
Care should be the watchword in handling all daffodil bulbs, but 
the grower will soon learn that some varieties are much more easily 
bruised than others. The varieties which have received the greatest 
injury and which are now treated with special care are Horsfieldii, 
Madame Plemp, Sulphur Phoenix, and at times Van Waveren's 
Giant. These seem especially liable to injury in the writers ex- 
perience and commonly arrive in bad condition from abroad. When 
carefully handled, however, there is no difficulty in getting the 
bulbs across this continent in unbroken lots by freight in the ordi- 
nary slatted crate. The bulbs of these varieties can not be shaken 
roughly in cleaning, and care should be exercised in the use of 
shovels and in dropping them into containers. When so handled 
there is no difficulty with them. 
ALBA PLENA ODORATA 
This is a variety that can not be flowered except in a cool and 
damp atmosphere. It grows and flowers to perfection in the Puget 
Sound region, except upon the drier sandy soils where it is much 
more subject to the blasted condition of the flower spike than on the 
heavier, moister Whatcom silt loams. The success of John H. 
Umpleby in producing the variety in northern New York proves 
the adaptability of that region. One instance of its successful 
flowering and culture has come under observation in Tidewater, 
Va. This is on moist, siltv soils where it blossoms before hot 
