248 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ November, 
THE CULTIVATION OF LILIES IN POTS. 
t LTHOUGH most of the Japanese Lilies we cultivate will do well when 
planted out in the open air in particular situations, where both soil and 
climate are favourable to them, yet in so many places they either fail 
altogether, or only partially succeed, that by the majority I have no doubt 
they will continue to be looked upon, and continued to be grown, as pot-plants. 
In most places, large or small, where there is a conservatory or greenhouse to be 
kept furnished, these Lilies play a very important part, from the early summer, 
when the chaste Lilium eximium unfolds its fragrant massive flowers, followed 
by the many gorgeous forms of L. aiiratum^ and other summer-flowering kinds, 
down to the later-blooming varieties of L. speciosum^ which, by judicious treat¬ 
ment in retarding a portion of the stock in the early stages of their spring 
growth may be had, even in the southern counties, as late as the middle of 
October. Though so extensively grown, it is much more usual to meet with 
these plants in an inferior condition, than up to the mark they are capable of 
reaching, if a few essentials to their well-being are kept in view, and their 
ordinary requirements are fairly attended to. 
The fact of any useful plant or family of plants becoming plentiful may be 
looked upon as a general benefit to all who cultivate them, yet this is frequently 
anything but conducive to the well-being of the plants themselves, especially if 
they possess the other good property of being easily grown. This is just the cause 
to which very often may be traced the poor condition in which these Lilies are 
seen. They get the character of being, and are found to be, easily grown, and 
their accommodating capabilities are thus correspondingly imposed upon, until 
the treatment they receive is barely such as enables them to exist. I speak from 
personal experience in this respect. It is now about thirty years since I first obtained 
a bulb each of the different varieties of L. spfeciosiim (often miscalled L. land- 
folium). On receiving these—as has always been my practice with any plant 
with which I have not had previous experience—I considered attentively their 
natural habits of growth and rest, and treated them in accordance with what I 
thought most likely to be conducive to their well-being. In the second or 
third year after getting them, they attained strength sufficient to enable 
the strongest stems to produce from 20 to 25 flowers each. For two 
or three years they kept on something like this, and afterwards got gradually 
weaker, until the greater portion did not bear more than half-a-dozen blooms 
each. Eecollecting what they had been, their then condition did not admit of 
a favourable comparison, and I resolved to try to bring them up to the state in which 
they had previously been. I may say that they had never been so far neglected as to 
omit potting, or replacing the old surface-soil with new as they required it, at the 
proper time, when the tops had died down, and before any movement of the roots 
had taken place; nor in allowing the soil to get too wet in the autumn, after the 
leaves had turned yellow and lost the power to relieve the roots of superabundant 
