CHAPTER II 

 "CONSIDER THE LILIES" 



COMMON ERRORS OF BELIEF IN THE REQUIREMENTS OF 



THESE SUPERB FLOWERS — A DOZEN SPECIES THAT ARE 



REALLY HARDY 



IN A recipe for jugged hare some one once made 

 the sage remark "First catch your hare!" This 

 aphorism is sound, and apropos of growing 

 Lilies it may be altered to "First secure healthy bulbs." 

 In the matter of the hare every epicure cannot go 

 forth with dog and gun and hunt his game; neither 

 can every lover of the Lily journey forth to distant 

 regions and dig a stock of bulbs. Both, perforce, 

 must resort to the dealer and depend upon his knowl- 

 edge and honesty, or on their own judgment. 



As one who has hunted the Lily on cliff and dale, 

 on mountain-slope and alpine moorland, and through 

 woodland and swamp in many remote parts of China 

 and the Thibetan borderland, and from the extreme 

 south of Japan northward through that pretty 

 country to Saghalien and the lonely shores of the 

 Okhotsk Sea, I propose here to consider, cursorily, 

 how Lilies grow. No class of herbs is more widely 



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