Bulb Information, Growing Daffodils

inquiry on behalf of someone seeking info

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Friends, please read the info below.  If you can help answer the questions, please communicate privately and direct with Tyler and Ellen Waybright.  They have been copied on this, so find their e-mail address above.  Their questions follow:

 

We just bought an old farm in mathews county virginia intending to hunt the property.  We brought in heavy eqiupment to remove the stump fields left to make a few food plots but left the rest as is.  We can tell by the timber that the farm has been unattended since the I guess the 1940’s.  We bring home several buckects of daffodills we vist/work the farm.  My wife works at a fine resturant, and take all the flowers we can muster! I thought that since I have agricultural eqipment al ready there why not grow some flowers! I would like to know how to get started and am interested in the eqipment and techingues that might have been used on my farm back in the day. I have few few basic questions:

 

Did they grow these bulbs in rows?  if so How often were the rows reworked/replanted?

 

Did the farmers use tractors and/or people to work the farms?

 

How were flowers harveted?

 

If they used  tractors do you know what types or configurations were used?

 

How were they marketed/sold?

 

Thanks for your help!

Tyler and Ellen

 

Appreciatively,

Jaydee Atkins Ager

Executive Director

American Daffodil Society, Inc.

www.daffodilusa.org  www.daffodilusastore.org  www.daffseek.org

PO Box 522

Hawkinsville, GA  31036  USA

 

1 comment for “inquiry on behalf of someone seeking info”

  1. Tyler,

    I’m an old country boy that has memories of the 1940s.  Tractors were very primiative back in those days.  You can see those tractors in what is know as historic tractor shows or museums.  A Model John Deer’s, Olivers, Cub Farmall’s, etc. 

    Many farmers were still using horse/mule drawn farming equipment.

    Many of the daffodils farmers grew their daffodils in rows and dug them with a plow that is sort of a modification of how potatoes were dug.  Labor intensive work to pick up and preserve the bulbs.

    In general, from what little reseach I have done on the old daffodil farms from the cut flower industry of years ago is that it was a labor intensive business.  daffodils were hand picked in the bud, packaged and shipped to distributors that took them to various markets, usually by train.

    Good luck on finding out more about farming in the 1940s in your local area.

    Clay Higgins

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