30 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1880. 



that as far as my experience goes that is tlie fact. Last winter a 

 tea-rose, Bon Silene, standing in a slieltered spot, was forgotten 

 and remained uncovered during the winter, witli only a slight 

 protection of leaves about the root, and last summer it gave as 

 line blooms as I have ever seen. What 1 have said may be old 

 to many of you, but I hope to get some information from those 

 that are much farther advanced in the art of raising roses. I do 

 not wonder that amateur rose-growers stand appalled at the 

 elaborate directions given b}^ writers on roses, notably the Eng- 

 lish. I do not think that we Americans, as a nation, love flowers 

 as the English do. I am told (I have never been there) that the 

 cottagers vie with each other in their small gardens, and produce 

 flowers that practical gardeners might well be proud of. It 

 cannot be that they have great resources, but one thing is cer- 

 tain, they do not say, as I have been told recently by a friend, " I 

 have no time to grow flowers." It is easy to find time for what- 

 ever we want to do, especially when the heart is in the work. I 

 drift almost without a thought from the rose to the lily. In my 

 mind they are always associated, and, although I have little to 

 say about the culture of the lily, I will speak of some of the 

 difiiirent varieties. All of the lilies wdiich we cultivate are not 

 entirely hardy. Liliura longiflorum must be protected with a 

 light compost. Auratum is very particular where it grows, and 

 sometimes, under what seem to us favorable circumstances, dis- 

 appears entirely. I wish we could be as sure of it as we are of 

 the lancifoliums. Lilivnn Humboldtii and Lilium Parryii, two 

 fine varieties from California, are coming into market, and 

 promise to be acquisitions. Perhaps the new lily Parkmani, a 

 cross between auratum and rubrum, will prove more hardy and 

 reliable from the fact that rubrum is so robust in its growth. 

 Benj. T. Wells, of Boston, is importing some very fine varieties 

 from Japan. Amaryllis formosissima is fine for bedding pur- 

 poses, and gives general satisfaction ; also, Zephyranthes rosea, a 

 beautiful pink lily-like flower. There is a white variety of the 

 latter, but it is not common, and I do not know iiow it would be 

 as a bedder. The Zephyranthes is also called the Atamasco 

 Lily. The Gladiolus is one of the leading flowers now, and 

 there is an almost endless list of them, and when we think 

 of the time when there were only two or three varieties, 

 how strange it seems. If given the soil it needs, it is rampant. 

 I have found a rich, clayey loam produced exceedingly fine 

 flowers, and the roots raised on that soil were the finest I have 

 ever seen. One ought to make successive plantings; about three, 

 two weeks apart, will give early and late blossoms. 



The Tuberose is easily grown — at least I find it so; whereas I 



