KEEPING STEP WITH THE TIMES 
N EXT month The Garden Magazine will put into 
effect some changes designed to make it a still more 
useful and intimate member of the household than 
it has been in the past. Gardening has evolved 
along very definite lines since The Garden Maga¬ 
zine was started in 1905 when, as was then stated, it appeared 
as “the logical working out of the growing interest in the 
garden ... as a delight and pursuit for the busy people in 
the world who find a fascination in the things of the soil.” 
1 he garden has become an integral part of the home life and 
has developed in America in a way that is distinct from garden¬ 
ing in any other country. It is a household occupation. Start¬ 
ing out with the feeling that the garden ought to be included as 
part of the home instead of being an isolated necessity, we have 
lived to see a changed point of view. The garden to-day ex¬ 
presses the home and might well adopt the slogan “No Home 
Without Its Garden.” 
The enormous impetus that suburban and rural home build¬ 
ing has taken on since the War is inseparably associated with the 
expansion of the garden feeling and, in fact, may have been very 
largely a cooperating influence; and so The Garden Magazine, 
marching along with the times, will expand to the new appeal 
of the home builder. 
This enlarged appeal will be accommodated by additional 
pages of text, and the distinctive and special place the magazine 
has always occupied in its relationships to the gardening and 
horticultural activities of the country will not be in any way 
jeopardized; but, on the other hand, we shall serve the all 
around interests of the owner of the garden and the home to¬ 
gether as one indissoluble practical unit. A new type dress will 
be given and new features will be added while the old ones will 
be retained, and next month our friends will be greeted by the 
ampler title of Garden Magazine & Home Builder. 
THE FUTURE BULB SUPPLY 
C AN we or can we not get our “ Dutch” bulbs from domestic 
sources when the European supply is cut off in another 
year? It would be worth a great deal if we could get a clear 
light on the whole befogged situation. Mrs. Howard’s letter on 
page 423 raises some interesting thoughts. Her correspondent 
in California (quoted in the letter) seems to assert that the very 
existence of the things that are needed by the Eastern gardener 
is kept secret because there is no market. The Eastern trade, on 
the other hand, asserts either that it cannot get the desired sup¬ 
plies or that such samples as it has had do not meet accepted 
standards. Wherein lies the truth? 
One concern in the East has entered very largely into the 
raising of Tulip bulbs. This is the Seabrook Farms, near Phila¬ 
delphia, and recently a demonstration of their “American raised 
Tulips” was put into the Roseland Nurseries, New Brunswick, 
N. J., alongside the Lincoln Highway. We went to see them. 
The flower was all that could be desired and the trial had been 
made apparently under fair conditions, but we gather that these 
bulbs are merely grown on offsets or the first increase of the 
breaking up of a mother bulb, which, of course, is not demonstra¬ 
ting anything new, and Mr. Duffy says that in his garden in 
Illinois he has had Tulips growing on for forty years. 
Here in our grounds at Garden City we have had Washington 
raised bulbs of several varieties of Narcissus from Mr. Lawler 
and they hold their own fully against the imported Holland 
stock grown alongside. They have now flowered for two years. 
We have also had very successful results this season with Span¬ 
ish Iris in several varieties from the same source. All this is 
heartening as far as it goes. And for our part we care not a bit 
whence the bulbs come so long as the people can get them in 
quality and in variety as before. More power, indeed, to all 
those who are trying to meet the conditions. 
On the other hand, some florists have reported that the Pacific 
Coast grown bulbs, Californian in particular, will not force in the 
same way as the European stock. That may be a matter of 
minor importance to the majority of our readers, but it is some¬ 
thing to be reckoned with and would seem to indicate there is 
something different in the products of the two regions. 
It may, or may not, be significant that in Holland, where bulb 
growing has been so greatly specialized for several generations 
the entire producing is confined within a narrow strip compassing 
not more than about two hundred square miles, and that the 
principals there engaged in the industry with knowledge, labor, 
capital, stock, and a market, have not succeeded in expanding the 
boundaries of this particular area, nor were they successful 
when they tried to establish a similar industry elsewhere in the 
Netherlands, nor in France, England, Denmark, Germany. 
Now, assuming that the conditions are right and the stock can 
be raised of identical or equally serviceable quality here in Amer¬ 
ican, the question is: Will the quantity be available to meet do¬ 
mestic demands as they have been supplied in the past? Can 
adequate supplies be developed in, shall we say, less than ten, or 
thirty, or fifty years? Who has any actual figures—facts? 
Everybody seems to be talking “up in the air.” Certainly, 
on the published statements of those who are already trying 
to establish bulb growing enterprises there will be a sudden 
dearth of high quality, high priced varieties, for it takes long 
years to produce the new ones by hybridizing and raising the 
seedlings, testing them against accepted sorts and then in¬ 
creasing the stock to commercial quality. This has been 
going on for so long with the European producer that the 
constant succession of improved introductions comes year by 
year. We shall have to do without these or anything like 
them until a new start can be made, if indeed any one will take 
the trouble to do it. This effect of the quarantine does not 
make for horticultural progress, but rather quite otherwise. 
Here is another instance. A large grower of Peonies recently 
made application to import a quantity of a well known standard 
red Peony for which there is demand but apparently an inade¬ 
quate supply. Permission was refused by the Federal Horti- 
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