LILIES — A REPORT 
To my surprise I see that in the introduction to 
last year’s catalog, | complained that we had just 
gone through a wet season. If 1953 was wet, then 
words fail me to describe the 1954 growing season. 
It rained all the time and we had severe hail storms, 
as well. All this resulted in the poorest flowering 
season on record but, curiously enough, the Lilies 
did not seem to suffer and produced the best bulbs 
ever harvested. In fact, the bulbs grew so well that 
the smaller stock, planted down to be harvested in 
1955, produced large sizes in one year and had to be 
harvested, divided and re-planted in 1954. This 
extra burden on our already heavily taxed equip- 
ment made the harvest season anything but a plea- 
sure. That we got through at all and that we were 
able to handle the enormous volume of bulbs was 
only due to the many years of preparation for just 
such a situation. Our organization was equal to the 
emergency and everything ran smoothly. 
Looking back over the past season a few other 
things stand out. One is the excellent Lily Show in 
Seattle, seen by not nearly enough people. Well 
managed by Mr. C. L. Shride and his able assistants, 
the show was the best ever staged in this country. 
In spite of the really extremely poor flowering sea- 
son, a magnificent collection of Lilies was on display, 
much of it material not easily duplicated elsewhere. 
We were very glad to have won many blue ribbons, 
but were even more pleased to win Awards for two 
very different Lilies. The Vote of Commendation 
for “Enchantment” was an honor that, we feel, was 
long overdue. Already in 1948 the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society honored this Lily with a First 
Class Certificate. Since then it has also won an 
Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural So- 
ciety in England, as well as a Special Award in New 
Zealand. The other Award was for a unique Lily, 
the “Empress of India”, an exotic, intensely colored 
Auratum hybrid of our own raising. Sister seedlings 
of the “Empress”, flowering after the show, were 
pure white and white with deep crimson spots. See- 
ing them, we were sorry that we could not have 
shown the entire family in Seattle. 
Another thing that will keep the 1954 flowering 
season alive in our memory was the first flowering 
of a large group of seedlings from hand-pollinated, 
controlled crosses in the Aurelian strains. To see 
the first flowering of an acre of new Golden Clarion 
trumpet Lilies, of large stocks of improved Heart's 
Desire and Sunburst Lilies, was a thrilling experi- 
ence. There were also new pink trumpet Lilies that, 
both in the intensity of coloring and in the perfec- 
tion of form and habit, broke any precedents. Stand- 
ards of selection, that we had considered entirely 
adequate but a year ago, had to be revised and 
raised. Some of these Lilies will be on the market 
already in 1955 and are offered in this catalog. 
Others we plan to hold back for further hybridizing, 
as we are still trying to intensify the coloring. That 
quest will go on forever and, while one never is 
quite satisfied with what has been achieved, we do 
feel that our 1955 strains are very good. 
In the Fiesta Hybrids, too, remarkable advances 
were registered. The color range of this attractive 
and useful strain of Lilies was again extended. More 
and more golden and lemon-yellow flowers ap- 
peared, as well as some very unusual browns. The 
Golden Chalice strain from new seed came one 
hundred per cent true to color and required but 
little selection for type. The Olympic trumpet Lilies 
were a joy to behold. These Lilies are a far cry 
indeed from the old L. centifolium and in their col- 
oring and habit show more and more pronounced 
L. sulphureum and L. Sargentiae inheritance. It is 
strange how much these Lilies have changed, some- 
thing that one realizes only when comparing photo- 
graphs of the fields of a few years ago with those 
taken last summer. 
For the first time in years we have made a reduc- 
tion in the acreage planted to Lilies. Our reasons 
for this curtailment of our plantings are various. 
Considering the uncertainties of the economic out- 
look for the country as a whole, we did not think 
further expansion, nor even maintenance of our 
enormous acreage, was justified. To grow large 
quantities of fine Lilies, only to have to market them 
eventually at bargain prices, is not sound. 
What we have done is to improve the quality of 
what we produce by eliminating all poorer and gen- 
erally all older strains. We have restricted still fur- 
ther the number of varieties we grow and offer. It 
really hurts to have to part with old friends, Lilies 
that are beautiful and that surely sooner or later 
would have found their market. But the process of 
commercial introduction, of color plating and pro- 
motion is too slow and too costly to permit us to 
indulge in the naming and offering of new Lilies, 
only because we like them. 
Our planting south of Portland was again most 
successful. The soil and climate there are sufficiently 
different from those prevailing on our farms closer 
to home to make an efficient work schedule possible. 
Often when it was too wet here, we could do useful 
work there. We obtained another splendid piece otf 
land, still further south, and are now preparing a 
large acreage there for our 1955 fall planting. These 
farms should be worth seeing next summer. The 
finer things, those that we selected for breeding and 
that we must have under our immediate observation, 
will be planted on our farms near Dodge Park... 
You and your friends will be welcome to view these 
fine Lilies, any time at your convenience. They are, 
we feel, the best large commercial stocks of hybrid 
Lilies grown anywhere in the world. 
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