454 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



December, 1907 



Gathering the Forced Lilac in the Hothouse 



most beautiful sprays of white lilac are grown. 1 his part 

 of the Seine Valley, by the way, is singularly little known to 

 Paris visitors. Artists know and love it though, for in its 

 heart is the quaint resort known as "Robinson," where there 

 is an entire village of restaurants and aerial bowers perched 

 high among the giant limbs of vast elms and chestnuts. 



Visitors to Vitry will notice that a huge area of the Seine 

 Valley hereabouts is given up to the open-air cultivation of 

 lilac. Not many people are aware, by the way, that this 

 beautiful shrub was originally brought to us from Persia, a 

 land famous for its flowers for many ages. The lilac has 

 become quite acclimatized both in America and in Europe; 

 but it will surprise many to learn that the white winter 

 variety is not grown out of doors at all, but that the lovely 

 fragile blossoms are produced in winter by forcing meth- 

 ods, and that from a lilac whose natural hue is mauve and 

 purple. The blossom becomes white by reason of the 

 treatment the plant receives. 



All through the hot summer months the gardeners at 

 Vitry, Fontenay-Ies-Roses and round about Sceaux are 

 busy examining the lilac trees and pulling up from the 

 family group such rods as have attained an age of from 

 five to nine years, and are therefore considered the most 

 promising for forcing. And on one side of the vast lilac 

 groves are big sheds which soon come to be packed from 

 floor to ceiling with what look like bundles of dried twigs, 

 only fit for the furnace. 



But close investigation will show that the root of each 

 little rod is deftly wrapped in a scrap of Mother Earth's 

 brown apron, and so the insignificant sticks are put to 

 sleep until the winter follows the gusty autumn. Then 

 the magical touch wakens them into a miracle of life. 



The long slender rods are now carried into the forcing 

 houses, where the wonder is to take place. Far-stretching 

 vistas of glass are these, divided on each side into twenty 

 or thirty cubicles. Here the dry sticks are planted close 

 together in rows in rich soil not more than eighteen inches 

 deep. Is it possible, one asks, that within three weeks the 

 "miracle of Aaron's rod" will have been wrought on 

 these barren twigs? Doors and windows are forthwith 



hermetically closed and the heating process then begins. 

 Each cubicle is maintained at an even temperature of 

 ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit; and so persuasive is this 

 treatment, in addition to constant and most careful water- 

 ing, that in only a few days the smooth rod is literally 

 bursting into bud. Extreme precociousness is not encour- 

 aged, however, and only a few privileged buds at the 

 ends of the twigs are allowed to complete their destiny. 



All the hopes and dreams of the luxuriant shrub, which 

 during its six or seven years of life have been so often set 

 high on the happy moment of flowering, are now wrapped 

 up in these few buds, which the inexorable gardeners de- 

 cide to spare. And as though fearful of another check, 

 another cruel failure, the sapling sends its nutriment up- 

 ward with such force in the supreme effort at flowering 

 that one can almost see the rod breaking into leaf and 

 blossom before one's very eyes. 



Surely here is a bud like a tiny bead, where but a mo- 

 ment ago was nothing but the bark of the dried twig! 

 And there is a tiny leaflet peeping forth as though by 

 magic ! Almost as we watch these evidences of life un- 

 fold, and each snowflake calls upon her sisters until a 

 tall and showy pyramid of fragrant blossom stands proudly 

 erect before us. 



Perhaps now, in the joy of her perfection, the lilac will 

 forgive the stern repression of her tender buds. That 

 she will forget, too, how she was condemned to grow in 

 total darkness until the first appearance of her flower 

 petals, so as to ensure an exquisite snowy blossom. Light 

 is given at length only to prevent the flowers from taking 

 on a yellowish waxen tinge, and also that they may gather 

 health and strength. 



Surely, you will say, these marvelous rods have wrought 

 a miracle, and done well for their masters! Alas, they get 

 little gratitude in return. These lilac plants are doomed to 

 the shortest of careers. No sooner have the lovely and deli- 

 cate sprays been gathered than the hundreds of rods that 

 have grown so vigorously in each cubicle are ruthlessly 

 dragged up, and their brief season of usefulness over, they 

 are cast into the furnace to supply heat for their successors. 



Trimming and Cutting off Useless Buds 



