LILIES AND THEIR WHIMS 279 



before April, as the spring rain and winds, I am con- 

 vinced, do more to kill the species than winter cold. 

 The flowers are heavily fragrant, like gardenias, and 

 are almost too sweet for the house ; but they, together 

 with violets, give the garden the opulence of odour 

 before the lilacs are open, or the heliotropes that are 

 to be perfumers-in-chief in summer have graduated 

 from thumb pots in the forcing houses. 



Unless one has a large garden and a gardener who 

 can plant and tend parterres of spring colour, I do 

 not set much value upon outdoor hyacinths; they 

 must be lifted each year and often replaced, as the 

 large bulbs soon divide into several smaller ones with 

 the flowers proportionately diminished. To me their 

 mission is, to be grown in pots, shallow pans, or glasses 

 on the window ledge, for winter and spring comfort- 

 ers, and I use the early tulips much in the same way, 

 except for a cheerful line of them, planted about the 

 foundation of the house, that when in bloom seems lit- 

 erally to lift home upon the spring wings of resurrection ! 



All my tulip enthusiasm is centred in the late 

 varieties, and chief among these come the fascinating 

 and fantastic "parrots." 



When next I have my garden savings-bank well 

 filled, I am going to make a collection of these tulips 



