36 CULTIVATION 
one hundred plants, or more, he should disbud severely 
by all means. For exhibition blooms not more than 
three or four flowers are ever allowed a single plant, 
often only one. 
There seems to be a feeling with beginners that 
pinching back plants, and disbudding, are difficult 
matters, not easily understood or practiced. But it is 
as simple as can be. Once understood and actually 
done one wonders that there ever should have seemed 
anything difficult or obscure concerning such practical 
operations. It would be a good plan for the beginner 
to buy, along with his other first planting of tubers, a 
dozen low priced sorts, such as many catalogs list at 
ten cents each, or one of the dollar "Collections" con- 
taining twelve to twenty mixed, unlabelled, tubers. 
These can be planted by themselves, and used as a 
practice plot, some to be pinched back, some to be 
moderately disbudded, some kept to only four flowers, 
as though for exhibition blooms, some let severely alone, 
except for the cultivation of the soil; a few might be 
extra fertilized ' 'within an inch of their lives;" and the 
tuber sending out the largest number of sprouts could 
be allowed to grow them all, as a "horrible example." 
In his first season the beginner could thus give himself 
a liberal education in dahlia culture, comparing actual 
garden practices and results with all that he has read 
or been told. Let him tell himself at the start that his 
low-priced collection of plants are to be merely subjects 
