There is a lilac planted somewhere near the door (front or kitchen) of every – and I do mean every – farmhouse in Wisconsin.  This is because only lilacs are beautiful enough to shame that brazen blue sky into modesty, or to make up for what winter has done to the roof.   It was of the utmost urgency, I think, that the arborists at the University of Wisconsin tested so many varieties of lilac.   A woman needs some optimism to live out in the middle of that much snow, and I wouldn’t want to be the extension agent who recommended a lilac that couldn’t deliver the goods.