CONSIDER THE LILIES 23 



books on Lilies one reads "Lilium auratum grows 

 in porous, open soil largely composed of volcanic 

 detritus overlaid by a deep carpet of woodland soil." 

 The first part of this statement is true but the "deep 

 carpet of woodland soil" is pure fiction. 



In Japan there is much poor and hungry soil but 

 none more so than the slopes of august Fuji and the 

 volcanic deposits of the Idzu province. Around 

 Matsushima, a beauty spot in northern Japan, I saw 

 this Lily wild in quantity growing among coarse 

 grass and shrubs on low hills and hillocks of pure, 

 gray sandstone. In western Japan, in the province of 

 Uzen, I also met with it growing wild on gravelly 

 banks and hillsides among small shrubs and coarse 

 grasses. It is the open, porous soil, and not the rich 

 humus, that this Lily luxuriates in. Leafsoil it loves 

 in common with all Lilies, but it wants no unaerated 

 acid peat and it loathes raw nitrogenous manures. 

 True, bulbs transferred from their natural haunts to 

 fields and cultivated like potatoes increase rapidly in 

 size but the constitution of the plant is undermined 

 and it becomes a prey to fungoid diseases. 



There is a minimum size to every kind of Lily 

 bulb below which it cannot produce strong, flowering 

 stems. This size varies according to the particular 

 species, but in every case a firm, solid bulb of moderate 



