726 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



conditions of treatment in the matter of soil and situation," a most 

 useful and practical method of grouping ; and the utility of it is vastly 

 enhanced by a short list of dwarf shrubs suitable for planting with each 

 group for shelter. Other useful chapters are on the " Planting of Lilies " ; 

 on " Pot Culture " (may we not say " Cultivation in Pots " ?) ; and on 

 "Diseases." Concerning the disease which so often attacks the common 

 white or Madonna Lily the author has not much advice or comfort to 

 give us. It admittedly puzzles us all. We know what it is — a fungus 

 called Botrytis cinerea ; but what causes the fungus to come, or lays the 

 Lily open to its attack ? Is it wet or cold, or too high feeding ? Our 

 author says " cold and over-stimulation." It maybe so, and yet many 

 cottage gardens where it thrives most luxuriantly look very cold in the 

 spring, and we have seen the patch "where the Lilies grow" mulched 

 with freshly collected horse droppings, and yet never showing a sign of 

 the fungus. That it can be cured with sulphur we have proved. Some 

 very fine bulbs most terribly smitten with fungus were three or four 

 years ago sent to the Scientific Committee in May, which we afterwards 

 experimented on in this way : We put the bulbs in a large blue "sugar- 

 bag," with about a quarter of a pound of flowers of sulphur, and every 

 few days shook the bag up well, continuing till September, when we 

 planted them, and they at once began to grow ; and though they gave us no 

 blossoms the first year the foliage was perfectly healthy, and the following 

 season they had regained their vigour and beauty. So far as we under- 

 stand its life-history, the fungus, having once got an entrance into the 

 tissue or flesh of the bulb, grows up unseen with the plant's growth, 

 penetrating the whole stem ; and just when the flowers are ready to 

 expand it comes to the surface and forces its way through the leaf-surface, 

 killing the leaves and destroying most, if not all, of the flowers, but itself 

 putting forth fruit in the process, which fruit, though most minute, falling 

 on the damp earth germinates in the soil, grows downwards till it again 

 reaches the bulb, finds its way into its substance, rests there during the 

 winter, and then begins over again its growth with the Lily's stem- 

 growth, and so continues da capo year after year until at last it exhausts 

 the bulb altogether, hard fight though it makes for it. Such, in popular 

 language and avoiding scientific terms, we believe to be the fungus's 

 history ; and if it be so, it ought to be possible to prevent the fruit 

 or seeds from germinating when they fall on the ground by scattering 

 kainit over the surface of the soil under the flower-stems before any sign 

 of the disease is apparent ; for we suspect that when it once shows 

 — when the leaves on the stem begin to flag and look semi-transparent — 

 we fancy the mischief is done by that time, the fruit or seed of the fungus 

 lias fallen ; so that if we sprinkled kainit all over the surface of the soil 

 before this took place, the fruit or seed of the fungus falling on it would 

 be killed, for they cannot bear either kainit or sulphur. It must of course 

 be borne in mind that when once the fungus has good hold of the bulb 

 nothing can save it that year, but the kainit treatment applied on the soil 

 this year may prevent the disease from reaching next year's Lily stems. 

 Wo are afraid we have been guilty of a terrible digression, but it is an 

 interesting subject for gardeners, suggested by a most interesting and 

 valuable handbook. 



