ON THE GUERNSEY LILY. 63 



against this enemy to tender exotics, would be 

 required in our own more severe climate ; but as 

 the means of giving this protection are simple 

 and practicable, there is no difficulty in effect- 

 ing it. In the milder climates of the western 

 side of our island, it might probably be effected 

 by means as simple as those used in Guernsey. 



These are the only practices by which the 

 cultivation of this root is distinguished. But I 

 must again repeat, that its tendency to flower is 

 not great ; in technical language it is shy of 

 flowering, even in Guersney, a circumstance 

 which appears to be common to it, with many 

 other plants well known to gardeners, and which 

 I need not enumerate, plants, whose delicacy of 

 sensation appears to suffer from irregularities of 

 temperature so minute, that we are unable to 

 appretiate them by any other test: Scarcely five 

 flowers are produced annually from a hundred 

 healthy roots. It is for those horticulturists to 

 whom the beauty of the flower-garden is an ob- 

 ject of attention, to calculate the relative value 

 of the toil and the reward. Let them at any 

 rate be assured, that he who sows not, shall not 

 reap. 



