ytis cinerea_ is its name and it seizes upon stalk and leaves in
the form of spots that are at first yellow and then deepen in colour,
until finally, having sapped the vitality of the plant, it succumbs.

Cold, damp, insufficient protection in winter, all serve to render the
lily liable to its attacks, but the general opinion among the wise is
that the universal overstimulation of lilies by fertilizers during late
years, especially of the white lilies used for church and other
decorative purposes, has undermined the racial constitution and made it
prone to attacks of the enemy. Therefore, if you please, Mary Penrose,
sweet soil, sulphur, sand, and good winter covering, if you would not
have your lily bed a consumptives' hospital!

Some lilies are also susceptible to sunstroke. When growing in the full
light and heat of the sun, and the buds are ready to open, suddenly the
flowers, leaves, and entire stalk will wither, as when in spring a tulip
collapses and we find that a meadow-mouse has nipped it in the core.
But with the lily the blight comes from above, and the only remedy is to
plant in half shade.

On the other hand the whims of the flower require that this be done
carefully, for if the scorching sun is an evil, a soaking, sopping rain,
coming at the height of the blooming season and dripping from
overhanging boughs, is equally so. The gold-and-copper pollen turns to
rusty tears that mar the petals of satin ivory or inlaid enamel, and a
sickly transparency that bodes death comes to the crisp, translucent
flower!

"What a pother for a bed of flowers!" I hear you say, "draining,
subsoiling, sulphuring, sanding, covering, humouring, and then sunstroke
or consumption at the end!" So be it, but when success does come, it is
something worth while, for to be successful with these lilies is "aiming
the star" in garden experience.

The plantain lilies and hemerocallis seem free from all of these whims
and diseases, but it is when we come to the lily-of-the-valley that we
have the compensation for our tribulations with the royal lilies of pure
blood.

The lily-of-the-valley asks deep, very rich soil in the open sun; if a
wall or hedge protects it from the north, so much the better. I do not
know why people preach dense shade for this flower; possibly because
they prefer leaves to flowers, or else that they are of the sheeplike
followers of tradition instead of practical gardeners of personal
experience. One thing gro