THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 193 
NOTES ON LILIES. 
(With Coloured Illustration of Lilium chalcedonicum.) 
mea HE allusion to the “lilies of the field,” in that greatest 
4", and sweetest of sermons, delivered by our Lord on the 
Mount, has given rise to much interesting speculation. 
Somewhere in the Froran Wortp I have replied to a 
~_ correspondent on the subject, to the effect that if the 
Master had in his mind any particular lily, it might be the one 
registered in the books, and known in gardens, as Lilium chalce- 
donicum, but that a broad reading of a broad text would enlarge the 
allusion to flowers in general, so that we might say, “Consider the 
flowers of the field, which wear the clothing of God, and therefore 
need not to toil or spin.” I have searched through the eighteen 
volumes of the work, and failed to find the paragraph, and shall be 
thankful to any reader who can now direct me to its whereabouts. 
For the present it may suffice, however, to say that the Syrian lily 
answers the requirements of the sacred text, not only as to the 
passage just referred to, but also as to allusions to lilies in Can- 
ticles, Hosea, and Bieelbarantiens: Its colour is like that of the 
kingly robe, it is indeed arrayed like Solomon; it is short-lived as 
the grass, which “ to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; 
and it grows in profusion in ‘the district of Galilee, where it flowers 
in April and May. Then, no doubt, a speaker addressing a multi- 
tude in the open air might point to the purple thickets for an argu- 
ment, and with profound meaning declare that ‘‘ Solomon in all his 
glory was not arrayed like one of these.” 
Lilies have obtained a considerable amount of attention of late 
years, and very much has been written about them in this and other 
horticultural publications. Their beauty and fragrance will insure 
their popularity so long as the human mind retains its sense of 
beauty, and thus the difficulties that attend their cultivation will not 
greatly interfere with their diffusion in gardens. That there are 
difficulties none know so well as those who have purchased ex- 
perience by years of devotion to these charming flowers. The 
present summer will be emphatically a lily season, for the lilies are 
flowering with unusual strength and uniformity, and the fact 
reminds us that several successive summers of late years have been 
characterized by a poor bloom of lilies. The production of a fine 
bloom appears to depend in great measure on the autumnal rainfall, 
for all lilies make new roots soon atter flowering, and it appears that 
they require extra moisture when the new underground growth 
begins. The summer of 1875 was characterized by two distinct 
periods of unwonted wet, and the second of these corresponded with 
the season of new growth of most of the species of. lilies grown in 
our gardens; and of course with those grown in Holland, whence we 
obtain large supplies of new bulbs every year. In any case, however, 
a copious summer rain is good for lilies, and it follows that one of 
the important points in the cultivation is to give water liberally and 
July. 13 
