Report on LILIES —1951 
The 1951 season was, without doubt, the most 
difficult one we have encountered thus far. Trying 
to steer our production through the cross currents of 
supply and demand, adjusting it to the taste and the 
preferences of a buying public just becoming aware 
of lilies as dependable garden plants, is a difficult 
task. It was not made any lighter by the late spring 
frosts, which did some damage, nor by the driest 
summer on record. Moreover, much of the demand 
was late in developing. The public will never under- 
stand that it takes many years to develop good 
bulbs and that the supply is seasonal. Lilies can be 
transplanted at almost any time, but a large com- 
mercial undertaking like ours can only function if 
definite delivery seasons are observed. 
That in spite of the frost and the drought we 
were able to make almost full deliveries on all 
orders was the result of many years of planning. 
_For one thing, we had divided our planting over 
eight, widely scattered farms. Most of them could be 
irrigated and on the others the fine and careful pre- 
paration of the soils, previous to planting, did much 
to maintain a good moisture content. Again we found 
this year that when weather conditions were not good, 
the hybrids had infinitely greater vigor and could 
withstand adversity much better than the true species. 
Our lilies largely based on hybrid strains of our own 
raising, benefitted greatly from this condition. There 
is no doubt that a couple of inches of rain at stra- 
tegic times during the summer would have improved 
the crop. Especially the sizes of our L. candidum 
“Cascade Strain’ and of the L. centifolium 
“Olympic Hybrids’’ should have been larger. On the 
whole, however, we cannot complain about the re- 
sults of the year, for the crop was fair and the 
demand was good. 
The 1951 season brought us and our customers 
many honors. Our lilies, displayed at the Interna- 
tional Flower Show in New York by the Charles H. 
Totty Co., Inc., of Madison, New Jersey, won a 
special silver trophy. Skillfully grown and well dis- 
played by Miss Helen Totty, they were one of the 
highlights of this sophisticated metropolitan exhibi- 
tion. In April our lilies were the centre of the Men’s 
Garden Club exhibit at the Oakland, California 
Spring Garden Show, which won the coveted major 
cash award of fifteen hundred dollars. Grown under 
the general direction of Dr. Noble J. Logan and 
arranged by Howard Gilkey, they made a fine show- 
ing. | am deeply grateful to Miss Totty, Dr. Logan 
and Mr. Gilkey for all they did to make these ex- 
hibits possible. No awards, however generous, can 
compensate for the effort expended on these exhibits. 
The knowledge that horticulture can advance only 
by such cooperation must be the true reward for 
these fine gardeners. 
Page 36 
Again this past year we obtained a great deal of 
publicity. Most important, in terms of circulation, 
were the excellent articles and pictures that ap- 
peared in the Farm Journal and in American Home. 
From the gardener’s point of view, Dr. Joseph 
Howland’s well-written story about the hybrid lilies, 
illustrated by some magnificent color plates was 
certainly of equal importance. In addition to these 
articles, there were a number of fine stories about 
lilies in the Flower Grower, Popular Gardening, the 
Home Garden, Sunset Magazine, Better Homes and 
Gardens and many other publications. For 1952 sev- 
eral other articles are planned. The lily is still not 
nearly well enough known and many facets of its 
history, its symbolism and cultural needs, await 
publication. We stand ready to cooperate with any- 
one who desires to write about lilies. Our most com- 
plete library on the subject is at the disposal of all 
research workers. It includes the entire collection 
gathered by Abbe Souillet, as well as many other 
rare volumes and manuscripts. 
Favored by the unusually warm, dry and sunny 
summer, the 1951 flowering season was the best 
that we have ever seen. The emergence of many new 
hybrids, colors and types not heretofore seen in 
lilies, gave us thrill upon thrill — something that 
only the expert lily fancier, fully cognizant of all 
obstacles surmounted, can fully appreciate. Thous- 
ands upon thousands of our Aurelian hybrids, the re- 
sult of a well-directed breeding program carried out 
over a five year period, came into flower. Most of 
them were of the Sunburst type, although there were 
many fine new Golden Clarion lilies and hundreds 
of the new Pink Trumpets. The Sunburst lilies, how- 
ever, in new shades and forms were the highlight of 
the late summer and we are offering them with great 
confidence. For, apart from those that we flowered 
during the summer of 1951, there are several new 
crops of seed coming along, each*taken from suc- 
cessively better parent plants. 
Our golden yellow Mid-Century Hybrids — Pros- 
perity, Felicity and Destiny, to name but three of 
them — were magnificent in every respect. The 
stocks have been scaled and planted back, since 
we prefer to hold them for another year or two. They 
are different from any other new yellow lilies we 
have seen, especially in their greater vigor and 
ability to increase rapidly by vegetative means. 
Other new lilies that flowered during the 1951 sum- 
mer were a fine strain of seedlings from L. auratum 
x speciosum rubrum, some fine hybrids from L. con- 
color x Mid-Century crosses and a very large group 
of new L. candidum seedlings with varying petal 
and pollen colors, habits and forms. All of this ma- 
terial has been replanted, so that we shall have 
