NOTES 



ON 



LILIES AND THEIR CULTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.- i >! i J -> : ' \ : :', 



SINCE the time when the Golden Banded Queen (I/ilium Auratum), 

 only a few years ago, burst upon us in her wondrous splen- 

 dour taking captive the startled senses of all, not merely 

 horticulturists, but the public generally, by the enormous size and 

 number of her flowers, their powerful fragrance, their elegant and 

 graceful contour, their richness of ornamentation on a pure white 

 ground, and by the general stateliness of the plant, the cultivation 

 of Lilies has received a great impetus. 



Since that date, not only has Japan sent us Lily bulbs by tens 

 of thousands, but America, both from her Eastern and Western 

 Provinces, has contributed largely. India, Siberia, and the Caucasus, 

 &c., &c., have furnished their quota, and Lily cultivators, who* 

 some ten or twelve years ago might almost have been counted on 

 the fingers, are now to be numbered by the thousand. 



About the same time, horticultural taste began to tire of the 

 eternal sameness of red, yellow, and blue patterns, made up chiefly 

 from Lobelias, Calceolarias, and Geraniums ; foliage plants came into 

 vogue, sub-tropical plants were utilised, herbaceous plants, old 

 favourites, came again to the front, and with these, bulbous plants, 

 especially the Iris family, Narcissi, and Lilies, found many admirers : 

 and well they might, for few things are more graceful in outline, 

 few things more useful for decoration, few things more fragrant 

 than the pure white or richly coloured pendant bells of many a 

 Lily and their congeners. There is also this much in their favour, 

 that, with very few exceptions, all are perfectly hardy, and most 

 easily grown out of doors in almost any garden in the British Isles 

 (Scotland not except ed) ; and it is chiefly with a view to render 

 this more easy, that these notes on Lilies and their culture have 

 been penned. 



In a Rhododendron bed, whether peaty or loamy, Lilies find 

 a congenial soil, and what is most important, shade from scorching 

 sun ; and if planted on a slope, and well supplied at the roots with 



