14 -WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1885. 



speciosurrij are now among the most handsome of the family to 

 which they belong. The greatest drawback is that they are 

 scarcely hardy enough for out-door culture." And yet who in 

 Worcester County, questions the entire hardiness of Japan Lilies 

 in their almost infinite variety ! For years thousands of bulbs 

 of Lilium Specioswm have summered and wintered in our 

 municipal Elm Pake, the cold during the last three winters 

 being of extreme intensity. But still, in the summer of 1885, 

 their vigor was more marked and their brilliancy more striking 

 than at any former period. 



Years ago, — those world-famous Horticulturists, Ellwanger 

 and Barry, questioned the entire hardiness of Cydonia Japonica. 

 In this immediate locality it has withstood a temperature of — 

 27*^, unharmed ; and even in Rochester, distrust seems to be now 

 dispelled. Yet, in Bulletin No. 7, just issued by the Department 

 of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening attached to the Agri- 

 cultural College of Michigan, it is broadly asserted, under date 

 of Oct. 1, 1885, that " the Japanese Quince is not hardy !" 



The Villa Gardener (Eng.) writing of Lobelia Cardinalis, 

 makes the following curious statement : — " This herbaceous 

 perennial " (Charles M. Hovey insists that it is a bi-ennial — and 

 the experience of the writer coincides), " merely wants the pro- 

 tection of a cold frame, and should be sown in the autumn and 

 kept in the house. The plants will appear in the following 

 spring, when they should be planted into separate pots, shifting 

 once or twice during the summer, and protected during the 

 winter." 



The climate of England is reputed to be comparatively mild. 

 What our own winters are you need not to be told. Still, 

 Lobelia Cardinalis is said to require the shelter of a " cold 

 frame," in the one country ; while here, in bleak New England, 

 it riots in rich profusion, reckless of storm or sleet, and appa- 

 rently indifferent should the mercury burst the bulb of its 

 thermometer. 



What then is it to be hardy ? Upon what does it depend ? 

 In what respect, or to what degree, is it contingent upo : 

 uniformity of temperature, excess or deficiency of cold, fierce 

 winds or gentle zephyrs ? What forces of Nature, — restrained 



