LAVLOCKS-LILAS BLANC 



itself. But it is perhaps best appreciated in the towns. 

 While the tender purple bloom lasts, there is scarce too 

 modest a working home's window-sill or mantelpiece for 

 the display of a branche de Lilas stuck in the gullet of a 

 water-bottle. And your gay-hearted grisette or midinette, 

 early afoot in the streets, will always spend her first sou 

 of the day on a sprig of the sweet-breathing rosy cluster. 

 One may learn, whilst intent upon other matters, many 

 unsuspected things about objects even as familiar as 

 the common "Laylock," <A collection of old letters of 

 Georgian and very early Victorian days, with which we 

 have had much to do at one time, show a preference for 

 this phonetic rendering of the name.) Thus it appears 

 that a valuable febrifuge " principle " is obtainable from its 

 fruit/ that its wood, veined in pleasing colours and very 

 fine-grained, is in high request for delicate articles of 

 turnery and in particular for inlaying/ that a perfumed 

 essence is sometimes distilled from it that is almost indis- 

 tinguishable from Rhodes Balsam~and so forth. 

 Those, however, are not the points of interest which have 

 made it imperative to have a plant or two of " Laylocks " 

 in our Sentimental Garden. <They do fairly well, be it 

 said, in their own specially sheltered, suntrap corner of 

 the ground.) No, there is in life an ever-growing motive-- 

 old sake's sake. Syringa Persica may mean much to the 

 operative gardener, but it can never mean Lilas blanc * . , 

 Lilas rose ! 



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