FOR YOUR GARDEN 



NEW HYBRID LILACS 



DO YOU KNOW THEM? 



JT >>EEM.S to be the natural thing for gardeners and flower lovers to bend 

 their efforts mainly to the direction of those flowers with which the hybrid- 

 izer has shown the most accomplishment. Witness the present jjopularity of 

 the Rose, the Peony, the Iris, the Gladiolus, the Dahlia and the Delphinium. 

 The plant breeder has been at work with these for many years, and the fruit 

 of his study and labor is a joy to thousands who find pleasure and recreation 

 in a garden. He has achieved size, height, hardiness, colors undreamed of, 

 variance of form, and has lengthened the blooming season. Often we hear it 

 said that there are already too many A^arieties of a given flower, that further 

 introductions would be superfluous, but each season we are treated to still 

 greater improvements. And always there are a few gems which outshine all 

 the others. The true enthusiast looks forward to tliese new things with the 

 keenest of anticipation. 



Now while hundreds are at work turning out new things among the hen\> 

 mentioned above, and with the competition getting more acute each season, 

 there has been but little progress made with many of our shrubs. True, we 

 have some marvelous things among the rhododendrons — hikI ]hi\v liard they 

 are to obtain; also there have been great things done with tlie pliiladelphus 

 or mock orange. But in general, it is with the shrubs that the greatest oppor- 

 tunity for development lies. 



The lilac is the one flowering deciduous shrub wliieli ]iH> responded to the 

 plant breeder's efforts, that is. to a degree sufficient to show great variety in 

 color, form and habit. Starting with two or three wild species, and augment- 

 ing these original two or three with a few additional natives from remote 

 corners of the earth, the lilac hybridizer has given us scores of lovely sorts, 

 and one has only to visit a modern collection at blooming season to become a 

 convert to lilac dom. 



Not so many years ago, the Lemoines. of Xancy. France, began working 

 with the lilacs to see what could be done in tlie way of producing better 

 things. Today tens of thousands of visitors flock to see the lilacs in bloom 

 in the great collections at Boston. Rochester and Chicago, and what they see 

 there is a revelation to most of them, for few people dream that there are 

 more than tvv'o or three different kinds of lilacs. While most of the varieties 

 in these famous collections are of French origin, a few have come from Amer- 

 ican producers who are becoming aware of the great possibilities in this field, 

 and several nurserymen in the Mid West and East are now hard at work 

 in the hope that they will turn out something distinct and fin(\ 



But almost thirty years ago. while Lemoine was engaged in his development 

 of this same flower, a woman of Woodland, Washington, was also planting 

 seeds of the few lilacs then in her possession, and she has been steadily at 

 it ever .since. She is Mrs. Hulda Klager, and her place at the edge of the little 

 Washington town has become a mecca for thousands of people during the lilac 

 flowering season. There the visitor will find great bushes of her earlier pro- 

 ductions, towering fifteen feet high, and laden with myriads of flower trusses. 

 Many of these earlier things are as fine as any of the French sorts, and her 



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