INTRODUCTION 
It is twenty-six years since I began to collect the native bulbs, plants 
and seeds of the Pacific Coast of the United States, and I need no intro¬ 
duction to most of my customers. It has always been my endeavor to 
s 'P! ly the very best that the season would allow, and 1 would rather 
at any time expend more tnan a thing brings me, than to disappoint 
those who have entrusted me with their orders. 
It is, however, only just to me that 1 should call the attention ot 
my customers to the great difference between such a business as mine 
and the culture of the great staples, such as Narcissus, Hyacinths and 
Tulins. 
In the latter case, if for any reason, climatic or other, a failure oc¬ 
curs with one dealer or in any section, it is exceptional if there are not 
sufficient elsewhere 1o ma e good the deficiency. 
With tiie so-called ‘ Cahfornia bulbs” it is very different. The 
world’s annual supply of a large part of them comes from me, and if 
my garden stoci s are all sold out, or if the season in some section is 
bad, or by sic! ness or accident some of my collectors are prevented 
from ma ing their collections ,n the limited time in which the work 
can be done, it is only by a great effort that I can make good the de¬ 
ficiency. 
I ha\ e trained men whom I can and do dispatch to points where 
failures have occurred, and I do usually finally secure a thing; but to 
fully apprec.ate the difficulty of the work, you must take into consid¬ 
eration the immensity of the field in which I operate. 
It 'is about six hundred miles from Ukiah to Los Angeles, three 
hundred and fifty to Nevada, six hundred to Southern Oregon, a thou¬ 
sand to either Eastern Oregon or the Puget Sound region; and from 
each of (hose localities some annual collected supplies must come. I 
have a well trained corps of local collectors, and failures are excep¬ 
tional, but with so many varieties some will occur. The time of my 
special trained collectors is mostly required to get those things which 
grow where I have r.o local collectors, and it may happen that to make 
good some failure of a local man, would endanger equally important 
collections that they are engaged in. Very often the collector must 
penetrate country where there are no railroads, and not so seldom 
where there are no roads of any sort. 
When all this is considered, I feel that it is much to my credit that 
in 1904, which was an unfavorable year, I secured 91 per cent of all 
bulbs ordered and 94 per cent of standard varieties. Is the record in 
staple bulbs much better? 
