order. It was a long time to wait--four years--but I felt there was no
use in being in too great a hurry, and every year the plants
manifestly improved, and the buds swelled up nicely and looked more
plump each winter when the leaves were gone. It must be remembered
also that a nice crop of flowers could be gathered each year. When the
fourth year came, the first plot was divided up into squares about 2
ft. each way, and taken up before any hard frost or snow had made
their appearance, and put away on the floor of an unused stable. From
the stable they are removed as required in the squares to the vinery,
where they grow beautifully, not sending up merely fine heads of bloom
without a vestige of leaf, but growing as they would in spring out of
doors with a mass of foliage, among which one has to search for the
spikes of flower, so precious for all sorts of purposes at that early
season of the year.

The spikes produced in this way do not equal in thickness and
substance of petal the flowers which come from more carefully prepared
clumps imported from Berlin, but they are fine and strong, and above
all most abundant. I can not only supply the house and small vases for
the church, but also send away boxes of the flowers to friends at a
distance, besides the many gifts which can be made to those who are
ill or invalids. Few gifts at such a time are more acceptable than a
fragrant nosegay of lily of the valley. In order to keep the supply of
prepared roots ready year after year, a plot of ground has only to be
planted each autumn, so that in the rotation of years it may be ready
for forcing when its turn shall come.

As the season advances, as every one knows who has attempted to force
the lily of the valley, much less time is taken in bringing the
flowers to perfection under precisely the same circumstances as those