LXV 
SPOON-FED CHRYSANTHEMUMS 
I SN’T IT ODD that it is possible to feed chrysanthe¬ 
mums with a spoon when they are being prepared for 
shows or for the market! 
Yet just this thing happens. I have seen it done in 
the hothouses of the government in Washington. 
The chrysanthemum, it seems, is a well-trained plant. 
It is used to being stall-fed. It has come a long way from 
the time when it used to be a sort of wild daisy on the 
plains of China. It was a very promising daisy; so speci¬ 
mens of it were sent to England, where florists began to 
experiment with its development. They selected seed 
from their biggest flowers and planted them. This pro¬ 
duced seeds from which still bigger flowers resulted. 
They took the biggest of these and planted them. So 
were bigger and bigger chrysanthemums grown. 
Among the yellow flowers, also, there were found occa¬ 
sional individuals that had pink petals or maroon ones. 
These plants were crossed with others like them. Then 
those with most pink and maroon were selected and again 
crossed. Finally chrysanthemums of these colors were 
established. 
So were different types of chrysanthemum developed 
from this Chinese daisy. They came to be popular au¬ 
tumn flowers. Growers began to take pride in them. 
Competitions developed. There came to be chrysanthe¬ 
mum shows. 
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