24 BULLETIN 1270, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
writer has seen no evidence to indicate that it attacks healthy nar- 
cissus bulbs, but that it commonly follows mechanical and other 
injuries which cause the bulbs to rot. 
The eelworm disease has received a great deal of publicity in 
England, less in the Netherlands, and appears to be of still less 
significance in America, where a much safer rotation of crops on 
new soils is feasible, this disease is detected by irregular raised 
areas and finally lesions on the leaves in the growing condition, also 
by discolored rings and streaks in the bulbs. The active stage of 
the organism occurs as the weather becomes warm in the spring. 
The only preventive measure which is said to give satisfaction is 
the hot-water treatment already described (p. 23). 
Rigid rotation, coupled with cutting the leaves off at the surface 
of the ground in severe infestations and destroying them when the 
parasite is most active, is to be recommended. Cutting the leaves 
off in this way will check the bulbs some, of course, but they will 
recover before the end of another 2-year period. This will aid 
greatly in the clean-up of the stock. After this the bulbs should 
be dug and reset on clean ground and most carefully culled. 
The gray disease is a malady that is little understood. The name 
is one that comes from the Netherlands. It is looked upon by the 
bulb grower as not a disease at all but as a weakened condition of 
stock. It manifests itself by an uneven distribution of the green 
coloring matter of the foliage of the daffodil, causing a streaked ap- 
pearance and a lighter color of the foliage in mass, the individual leaf 
being streaked with yellowish rather than bright or glaucous green. 
Plants affected never recover their normal coloring and are ever 
after weaker than normal ones. In these respects, and in the addi- 
tional characteristic that seedlings come clean and free from the 
striped condition, the behavior suggests the mosaic disease. All 
stocks the writer has ever seen of some varieties are broken or have 
the gray disease. Others seem to be addicted to the trouble. 
There is no known remedy. The only thing that can be done is to 
t rue up one's stock by roguing out the so-called gray individuals and 
then keeping the stocks in as vigorous condition as possible. The 
disease has been eliminated from Princeps in the Department of 
Agriculture stock by roguing and also by growing from seed. Sir 
Watkin is much subject to the trouble both here and in the Nether- 
lands. Although they vary greatly, stocks are seldom seen which are 
entirely free from it. 
WHERE NARCISSUS BULBS ARE GROWN 
All of the groups except the tender Polyanthus varieties are ca- 
pable of being flowered over a very wide range of territory. The 
statement in a recent commercial list, "popular wherever there is 
spring," is a catchy and suggestive way to express the wide area over 
winch they may he enjoyed. They are grown to-day, both cultivated 
and naturalized, from Canada to Florida and Prom Maine to Cali- 
fornia, :ind some varieties persist almost indefinitely over a large 
pari of i hi- territory when naturalized. 
The production of commercial stocks for the market, however, 
must be confined to narrower limits. On the whole, the climate of 
the Pacific Northwest is probably superior to any other considerable 
