The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-31
NOW LILAC-TIDE
 IS AT ITS FULL
Collectionc of Beautiful Shrub.c in Arnold Arboretum Brought from
 Every Corner of the World.

often enough, in distant mountain pas lures of New Hampshire or Vermont all overgrown with dense clumps of alders and gray birches, come upon little thicket of struggling lilac bushes, cover ing perhaps quarter of an acre of ground, the certain token of farm, cul- tivated in an earlier generation and now abandoned to the fast-growing hard wood.
 The common lilacs with single flowers were among the earliest ornamental shrubs set out in New England, though nobody knows just when they were first brought to these shores. Even in Eu- ropean countries 1t appears that they had not been known long when this coun- try was settled. for the very first men tion of them in English literature is to be found in Lord Bacons book on Gar dens" published about 1610. in which the author spells the name lelacke. and ex- plains that a more popular name was the blue-pipe. German account states that traveller named Busbeek originally brought the lilac to Europe about the middle of the sixteenth century, but whether he was the very first is by no means certain. One authority maintains that the lilacs which are very numerous in the Carpathian Alps are indigenous.
 At all events, whatever the history of it's introduction. there is no doubt of it's popularity in early New England, and in the Middle States Thus we find. accord ing to Mrs. Alice Morse Earle's book on old d-time gardens, that Sir Henry Frank land, that cavalier with the romantic his tory, ordered daffodils. tulips and lilacs for the wonderful garden which he made for Agnes Surriage at Hopkinton, Mas. sachusets. These, it is said, were the first lilacs ever seen in that remote vil- lage, and their descendants are reported still to bloom there. the only relic, be- sides a fan, which was picked up after the Lisbon earthquake, of the lives of the happy. ill-fated pair.
 The Hopkinton lilacs are, for sentiment tal reasons, the most famous beyond per- adventure in all New England, though they are very ordinary. botanically speaking. In truth, the culture of rare and peculiar species-such as the double varieties and the odd little Persian bush es-as practiced in the Arnold Arboretum. Is a matter of very recent date in this country; the older lilacs were always either white or purple, with single flow CTS. Of such, for instance, is that noted lilac hedge. neatly trimmed, at Indian Hill Newburyport, Massachusetts; and perhaps still better known, at least to New Workers, is the great thicket. the largest in North America, that is found at West Hampton Beach, Long Island. The big, handsome blooms that grow there you will often buy about this time of year in Twenty third Street, for the Italian flower sellers resort regularly to West Hampton and carry away whole trees.
 Quite likely Walt Whitman, who was native of Long Island, had visited this celebrated lilac grove in boyhood. At any rate. the flower is one that he very frequently names in his poems. It is said that he was standing under the blos- soming lilacs when he first heard of the death of Lincoln. and we know that he began his burial hymn with the words When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed."
 Again he has this delicate descriptive bit:
 The lilac bush, tall growing, with heart
 shaped leaves of rich green,
 With many painted blossom, rising del
 icate with the perfume strong I love- With every leaf miracle"