THE FLOKAL WORLD AXD QARDEN GUIDE. 233 



pots, aud placed in a gentle heat, they soon make roots, and must 

 then be potted singly. Pentstemons generally produce plenty of 

 nice shoots at the base in autumn, and if these are potted, several 

 together in a pot, aud put in frames, they may remain till spring, 

 and be planted out direct from the cutting pots to the places where 

 they are to bloom. If the stock runs short, all the plants may be 

 top)ped in spring, and will root quickly in a gentle heat. When it 

 is intended to propagate largely, it is best to take up all the old 

 stools, aud pot them in large pots, and keep them in frames. By 

 this means a large crop of cuttings may be obtained early in spring, 

 and they may be multiplied ad infinitum. The plants produced iu 

 this way do not, of course, attain to any great size, but they produce 

 fine flowers, and those who grow for exhibition should follow the 

 practice of propagating annually. I refrain from adding lists of 

 varieties, as some excellent lists were given by the Editor in the 

 early part of the year, aud well as I am acquainted with these plants, 

 I could not hope to compete with the judgment aud taste evinced in 

 the selections which the director of the Floeal World from time to 

 time presents us. I therefore conclude here, and hope that many of 

 our readers will find these brief notes of some practical value. 



J. WALsn. 



LILIES. 



BY W. EOBINSOK, T.L.S. 



' HE various species of this noble genus are now in full 

 and stately beauty — their colouring of the purest and 

 most exquisite character — their size and form superb, 

 and their fragrance and associations of the sweetest and 

 most endearing character. Why say all this of them ? 

 Has not much more than all this been said of them ages ago by 

 England's greatest poet, and has not old John Parkinson written of 

 them two centuries ago as the finest ornaments of his garden of 

 pleasant flowers ? 



But where are they now to be seen ? None of them but the 

 common species — the white aud orange — are now to be met with in 

 English gardens, and even the conunon kinds have to be looked for 

 in the gardens of the cottager, in the poor little labourers' gardens, 

 which to me now often present a greater beauty than an elaborate and 

 expensive bedding garden. That the most gloriously beautiful of 

 all hardy flowers or bulbs should be expelled from our gardens in 

 this way, is little other than disgraceful to us as horticulturists. 

 They have been driven out by the fashion for bedding jalants, but 

 they "will come in again," and beautify our gardens, as soon as 

 amateur cultivators see their beauty, and learn their value. Two 

 hundred years ago, as I have said, their variety in colour and size 

 was a theme for those who wrote on gardening when green orchards 

 were in Holborn, but of late years fresh introductions from Japan 

 and other countries have lent a richness to the family which few, 



