42 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
to get tho Lobelias ten foet high in the conservatory. I 
bad them so high when I was much higher in my 
own estimation, and those who took the heights are 
alive to this day—one of the Messrs. Dickson, of Chester, 
and the elder branch of the firm of H. Low and Co., of 
Clapton. But to put stools of this Lily to rest in October 
and November is a still less wise “ piece of business; 
and the temperature in which suckers of this Lily are 
wintered depends, or ought to depend, on where the 
plants are intended to bloom. I am now writing on 
their treatment as border flowers to be grown in a 
superior mannor, or like scarlet Lobelirfts, from four to 
five feet high, and both to come into flower together, 
after being»planted out of good-sized pots early in June, 
or earlier if May was very favourable planting-out 
weather. But to put them in at the shortest notice, all 
that seems necessary to say is this—if you are going to 
grow the Liliuni giganteum from seeds treat the seeds 
and seedlings as you would those of Campanula pyra- 
midalis the whole way through till they bloom; or, if 
you take nursery plants of it, which is the more likely, 
treat them in every respect as you would an established 
or rooted sucker of Lobelia fulgens ; that is, at the present 
moment. 
But of all the natives of the earth who knows best 
how to treat the said Campanula from seeds? The 
natives at the Clapton Nursery discovered the right way 
to raise this Lily in cold frames from seeds sown 
in October or some time late in tho autumn, as 
you were told this time last year; and in tho olden 
times that was just the way to “do” the Campanula. 
“ Sow in the autumn in pots or boxes filled with light, 
undunged earth, and placed in the open air till the 
frost or hard rains come on, when they should be placed 
under a hotbed frame, alias a cold pit, where they may 
bo sheltered from both ; but in mild weather the glasses 
should be drawn off every fine day, that they may 
enjoy the free air. With this management the plants 
will come up early in the spring.” The seedlings of 
Lilium giganteum thus treated during tho wipter of 1855 
and 1856 came up this time last year, and kept in leaf 
till last September in the Clapton Nursery; but let us 
pursue the parallel. The seedling Campanulas are up 
in the spring, “ and then they must be removed out of 
the frame, placing them first in a warm situation; but 
when the season comes warm they should be removed 
where they have the morning sun only. In September 
the leaves of the plants (Campanulas) will begin to 
decay, at ivliicli time they should be transplanted.'’ Now, 
supposing the Liliums to have been “ in pots or boxes” 
last September, that was the time to have them trans¬ 
planted for the first time, or say at the end of twelve 
months from the sowing of the seeds, just like the 
Campanula seedlings. 
But hear the shifts and contrivances for want of 
a “cold bed” in a cold pit. “Therefore there must 
be one or two beds prepared in proportion to the 
number of plants. These beds must be in a warm 
situation, and the earth light, sandy, and without 
any mixture of dung, which last is an enemy to this 
plant, and also to seedling Liliums. If the situation 
of the place is low, or the natural soil moist, the beds 
must be raised five or six inches above the level of 
the ground, and the natural soil removed a foot and a 
I deep (hear), putting lime rubbish or stones eight or 
nine inches thick at tho bottom of the trench to drain 
off the moisture (hear, hear). When the beds are pre¬ 
pared the plants must be taken out of the pots or cases 
very carefully, so as not to break or bruise their roots, 
for they are very tender, and on being broken the milky 
jmc.e will flow out plentifully, which will greatly weaken 
them. These should bo planted at about six inches 
apart every way, with the head or crown of the roots 
half an inch below the surface. If there happens 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, Arum 21, 1857. 
a gentle shower of rain soon after these are planted it 
will be of great service to the plants; but, as the season 
sometimes proves very dry at this time of the year, so, 
in that case, it will be proper to give them a gentle 
watering three or four days after they are planted ( hear ), 
and to cover the beds with mats every day to pro veil t 
the sun drying the earth; but these must be takbn oil 
in the evening, that the dew may fall on the ground. 
Towards the end of November the beds should be 
covered over with some old tanners’ bark to keep out 
tho frost; and where there is not conveniency of cover¬ 
ing them with frames they should be arched over with 
hoops, that in severe frost they may be covered with 
mats, for these plants, when young, are often destroyed 
in winter where this care is wanting. In the spring the 
covering must be removed, and in the following summer 
the plants must be kept clean from weeds. In the 
following autumn the ground must be stirred between 
the plants, and some fresh earth spread over the beds, 
and in the winter covered as before. In these beds the 
plants may remain two years, during which time the plants 
must be treated in the manner before directed, by which 
time the roots will bo strong enough to flower; so in 
September they should be carefully taken up, and the 
strongest potted.” Then the rest to be transplanted 
wider apart, and to bo kept from frost and weeds as 
before. “ With this management these plants may be 
brought to the utmost perfection, and a constant suc¬ 
cession of good roots raised, which will be much 
preferable to those which are propagated by offsets.” 
Every word of this excellent “ management,” as given 
by Miller, refers equally to the seedlings of Lilium gigan¬ 
teum , only that they will take a longer time to get to a 
flowering age. And now to their treatment from offsets 
or suckers. This is the same as for offsets of the scarlet 
Lobelias. They should be taken off and potted in the 
autumn, any time in October, in equal parts of sandy 
loam, leaf mould, and peat; large 00’s are the right-sized 
pots for small offsets, and for very large strong “sets” 
48-sized pots will be necessary. The pot3 should then 
be plunged into a very moderate hotbed, to be kept at 
55° till the middle or end of January, when they will 
require another shift, and after that about 60° of heat, 
with abundance of air, and a large amount of water at 
the roots. The same heat will do during the spring 
for plants which are intended to flower out of doors; 
but they ought to get a fresh shift once a month or six 
weeks, and those that are to flower in the conservatory 
may have more heat after the middle of March—05° t>o 
75°, according to the weather, will suit them to a 
nicety—that is, both the Lilies and the Lobelias, and 
no one can have too many of either if he or she has 
room for them. A second best is to rest the stools of 
both from October to the end of January, and then 
divide the offsets, pot, plunge, and regulate as before. 
To increase the stock of the gigantic Lily faster than 
the natural way (for it is like the scarlet Lobelias in 
that respect, the same plant never flowering but once), 
I say, to increase it at a gallop, break off’ the flower- 
stems of some of the plants when they are six or eight 
inches above the pot, and that will cause every hidden 
bud about the neck of (he plant to grow into an 
“ offset,” which will make a good plant by next year. If 
you also break off the flowering stem of the strongest 
Lobelias when they are from a foot to fifteen inches 
long, tho bottom part will throw up ever so many side¬ 
flowering shoots, which, if you thin them to four, five, 
or six, according to the strength of the bottom, every 
one of them will be as good a flowering shoot out of 
doors as you see the principal shoots of nine-tenths of 
those that are grown now-a-days; but the truth is, no 
one grows them now to one quarter of what they might 
be brought to if they were begun in October. When 
they are left at rest till the spring they necessarily grow 
