, and mix this with the good loam, together with a
scattering of bone, before replacing it. The bed should not only be
full, but well rounded. Grade it nicely with a rake and wait a week or
until rain has settled it before planting. When setting these lilies,
let there be six inches of soil above the bulb, and sprinkle the hole
into which it goes with fresh-water sand mixed with powdered sulphur.

This bed will be quite large enough for a beginning and will allow you
four rows of twenty bulbs in a row, with room for them to spread
naturally into a close mass, if so desired. Or better yet, do not put
them in stiff rows, but in groups, alternating the early-flowering with
the late varieties. A row of German Iris at the back of this bed will
give solidity and the sturdy foliage make an excellent windbreak in the
blooming season. If your friendly woman in the back country will give
you two dozen of the Madonna lily bulbs, group them in fours, leaving a
short stake in the middle of each group that you may know its exact
location, for the other lilies you cannot obtain before October, unless
you chance to find them in the garden of some near-by florist or friend.
These are--

_Lilium speciosum album_--white recurved.
_Lilium speciosum rubrum_--spotted with ruby-red.
_Lilium speciosum roseum_--spotted with rose-pink.

All three flower in August and September, _rubrum_ being the latest, and
barring accidents increase in size and beauty with each year.

In spite of the fact of their fickleness, I would buy a dozen or two of
the auratum lilies, for even if they last but for a single year, they
are so splendid that we can almost afford to treat them as a fleeting
spectacle. As the _speciosum_ lilies (I wish some one would give them a
more gracious name--we call them curved-shell lilies here among
ourselves) do not finish flowering sometimes until late in September,
the bulbs are not ripe in time to be sold through the stores, until
there is danger of the ground being frozen at night.

[Illustration: SPECIOSUM LILIES IN THE SHADE.]

On the other hand, if purchased in spring, unless the bulbs have been
wintered with the greatest care in damp, not wet, peat moss, or sand,
they become so withered that their vitality is seriously impaired. There
are several dealers who make a specialty of thus wintering lily
bulbs,[A] and if you buy from one of these, I advise spring planting.

If, however, for any reason you wish to finis