THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 235 



kinds from the cottage-gardener. The white and orange, though 

 common, are among the very best, and may be had quite cheap, or 

 for nothing wherever small cottage-gardens abound. Kinds like 

 tigriuum .and chalcedonicum may, be bought from our seedsmen in 

 autumn for fourpeuce or sixpence apiece. 



The varieties of lancifolium are dearer, but yearly getting more 

 plentiful. On the wliole there is no expense that need be feared. 

 Early in autumn as they can be obtained is the time to provide a 

 stock. The site of a bed for their accommodation should be settled 

 at once. My favourite way of growing lilies is in a rather large and 

 isolated bed in a quiet green spot, away from the flower garden or 

 any other important scene. Most villa, suburban, and country 

 gardens have quiet green slopes, or patches of grass running out from 

 the sward here and there, or grassy places irregularly surrounded by 

 shrubs, which would be capital positions to make a lily bed in. In 

 borders they may be done well, but from the miscellaneous contents 

 of such they are in danger of a raking up or disturbance from 

 digging now and then that may seriously hurt the roots of the lilies. 

 If the soil is well prepared and deep, they thrive for years without 

 disturbance, and therefore the best plan is to prepare for them a 

 suitable place where they may remain permanently. A bed 

 about ten feet wide would be the best for any garden above the 

 town size. It should be dug out if necessary and filled with three 

 solid feet of free rich earth, friable and sandy above all things, but 

 with no sparing of good, well-rotted dung. The biggest orange 

 lilies I have ever seen were grown in this way. An orangeman is 

 passionately fond of orange lilies, and these sliowy flowers abound 

 round thousands of the cottages of Irish Protestants. One I knew 

 had a large bed of them, but years of growth had caused them to 

 crowd together thickly, and to become somewhat weak. It was 

 sandy soil. He took them up, determined to make them worthy of 

 the good old cause, and putting about twelve inches of half-rotten 

 cowdung in the bed, covered with a little earth, and replanted rather 

 thinly. About two years afterwards I had some of these roots sent 

 to London, and they were the astonishment of all who saw thera. 

 They were as large as medium-sized Swedish turnips. There can be 

 no doubt, then, that strong-growing lilies are very fond of rich soil 

 and manure. 



Having prepared the bed and the bulbs, the planting is a sim- 

 ple operation — the only important thing to be attended to being 

 the regulation of the heights of the various kinds. L. excelsum or 

 testaceum grows tallest of any thoroughly hardy kind I know, and 

 therefore it should be in the centre of tho bed. The crown, or top 

 of all the bulbs should be at about five or six inches from the surface. 

 It is not certain yet how high good bulbs of auratum may grow in 

 the open air in this country, and therefore until we know all about 

 that he is best planted half-way between the centre and the edge 

 among the medium kinds. They should not be planted in patches, 

 because that is a very ugly way, and by planting them in circles or 

 in irregular mixtures, and gradually working down from the tall 

 kinds in the centre, to the orange ones at the edge, a long-con- 



