JULY 97 



when they are over the beauty of the plant is by no 

 means gone, for the handsome leaves remain in perfec- 

 tion till the autumn, while the growing seed-pods, 

 rising into an erect position, become large and rather 

 handsome objects. The rapidity and vigour of the 

 four months' growth from bulb to giant flowering plant 

 is very remarkable. The stem is a hoUow, fleshy tube, 

 three inches in diameter at the base, and the large 

 radiating roots are like those of a tree. The original 

 bulb is, of course, gone, but when the plants that have 

 flowered are taken up at the end of November, offsets 

 are found clustered round the root ; these are carefully 

 detached and replanted. The great growth of these 

 Lilies could not be expected to come to perfection in 

 our very poor, shallow soil, for doubtless in their moun- 

 tain home in the Eastern Himalayas they grow in deep 

 beds of cool vegetable earth. Here, therefore, their 

 beds are deeply excavated, and filled to within a foot 

 of the top with any of the vegetable rubbish of which 

 only too much accumulates in the late autumn. Holes 

 twelve feet across and three feet deep are convenient 

 graves for frozen Dahlia-tops and half-hardy Annuals ; 

 a quantity of such material chopped up and trampled 

 down close forms a cool subsoil that will comfort the 

 Lily bulbs for many a year. The upper foot of soil is 

 of good compost, and when the young bulbs are plantedj 

 the whole is covered with some inches of dead leaves 

 that join in with the natural woodland carpet. 



In the end of Julv we have some of the hottest of 



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