Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1894 — LILIES OF THE VALLEY. [ARTICLE]

LILIES OF THE VALLEY.

How Florists Protract Their Season of Blooming. There is an interesting and curious trade between Germany and this country in the lily of the valley. Many thousands of those lily “ pips,” as they are called, the roots, each with a single tight-wrapped bud, are imported at this season earlier and later. As the habit of the plant is well known, and it may be counted upon to flower in from nineteen to twenty-two days after the pip has been planted in sand and placed in a forcing house, the importers commonly make their contracts in advance with florists, and order in accordance with these contracts The pips come over in the holds of the great steamers, twenty-five bunched together, tied with a vegetable fibre and wrapped in moss. They are thus delivered to the florists, and then transfered to the forcing house. Hi five or six weeks from the time when the meaningless looking pips have left their native German soil the exquisite spray of drooping white bells, and the sheaf of green leaves is adorning the jacket of some young woman as she trips down Broadway. When the pips are first planted in sand they must be placed over steam pipes for the sake of the bottom heat, and kept continuously in a high temperature until the blossom is pretty well advanced. They are then removed from the pipes in order that the time of blooming may be prolonged. They are ordinarily planted in rough, shallow pine boxes, and spray after spray is clipped off as it is needed for bouquets, or roots and all are transferred in clumps for potting. The plants in the original pine boxes are much less attractive than the blossom when made into a bouquet. Many thousands of these lilies are cultivated in the open air. They may be set out just as they arrive from Germany at almost any time of year, and they resist frost with perfect hardiness. The out-door lilies bloom in the spring, and continue the season for the florists after the crop of the forcing houses has been exhausted. When these out door bloomers are exhausted, the florists have another resource in reserve. Thousands of lily pips, on arriving from Germany, are at once placed in cold storage, and kept there at a low temperature for weeks or perhaps for months. The development of the plants is thus arrested, and some weeks before the time when the outdoor bloomers will have been exhausted, part of the pips on cold storage are brought forth and either forced indoors or permitted to develop normally in the open air. In this way the season is further extended. Florists find that the lily of the valley is most difficult to manage for autumn flowering. The period of development is then at least twenty days, and the flowers are upon the whole less satisfactory than in winter and spring. Beautiful as the flower is it is not expensive. The pips may be bought at retail in November at from 30 to 40 cents per dozen, or about $1.50 per hundred. The price to the importers is far below this, and the rate to florists is such that there is a handsome profit in the plants when the cut flowers retail as low as five cents per spray. As each pip produces only one set of blossoms and the percentage of loss is reasonably uniform, florists know pretty well what to count on in forcing the lily of the valley.—[New York Sun.