278 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in any branch that can be taught with profit, will be formed whenever 

 practicable. The elementary classes are so conducted as to require no 

 previous knowledge of botany ; but admission to advanced classes de- 

 pends upon a sufficient familiarity with the subjects to render the work 

 profitable. — From " The Missouri Botanical G-arden," in " American Gar- 

 dening" for July. 



In planting lilies, as everything else, white flowers must not be 

 overlooked ; as Ellwanger says, " White is the lens of the garden's 

 eye," and in a class so generally conspicuous for its glowing colors we 

 need the snowy purity of the Madonna lily (L. candidumj, or the stately 

 waxen blooms of the tall Annunciation lily fL. longijlorumj. * * The 

 use of tall-growing and showy bulbs is singularly effective in connec- 

 tion with shrubbery; the arrangement looks so delightfully natural,, 

 breaking, as it does, the monotony of similar sizes of shrubs or foliage. 

 Certainly, the nearer we approach nature in arranging our gardens, the 

 nearer we are to actual harmony ; it is rather hard to imagine how we 

 ever could manage to reconcile our consciences to carpet-bedding. It 

 should be a great comfort to the lily tribe to feel that they can never 

 be tortured into an even mosaic, looking more like a few yards of 

 linoleum than a flower-bed. But there are plenty of misguided people 

 still living who admire this form of garden art ( ! ), and until they wake 

 to the error of their ways we shall continue to see bedding plants mis- 

 arranged after the model of carpets From " The Lilies of the Field," 



in " American Gardening" for July. 



From Flower to Fruit. 



BY EDWIN TAYLOR. 



From flower to fruit is sometimes a long distance. Sometimes the 

 fruit don't get there at all. Frequently the expectant vine-dresser^ 

 regarding his barren branches with melancholy gaze, finds no more 

 hope in them than found Marianna of the Moated Grange when she 

 cast her eye athwart the gloaming flats. At such times the empty- 

 handed fruit-grower might be excused for wishing he had a bakery, or 

 an undertaker's business, or a county office, or was in something where 

 the returns are sure. Sometimes the bucolic victim of hope deferred 

 don't get iuy flowers, either. But this is not a frequent experience^ 

 We mostly have blossoms. It is the recurring flowers that toll the 

 horticulturist on. 



Nature has sized us up just right, and knows about what we will 

 bear. At the sight of the recurring flowers with each recurring springy 



