162 THE FLORIST. 



ventured to give about covering up from frost are correct. 

 I can safely say that I have never had finer blooms than 

 this season, or never saw flowers come truer to character, 

 and that, in such a winter as this has been, the autumn 

 flowering does not hinder the spring bloom. I had but half a 

 dozen in all that served me this trick, but from those very 

 plants I had quite as fine bloom as from any ; in fact, they 

 grew through the winter so vigorously that the plant was 

 sufficiently strengthened to enable it to throw out a fresh 

 bloom. That this would not be the case in a severe winter, I 

 think highly probable. I am confirmed in my opinion, too, 

 that overpotting is injurious, and that if you give a fresh 

 supply of food entirely to the plant once in the year, and 

 nearly a half at the top-dressing time, that you may keep them 

 in much smaller pots than they are generally grown in. I have 

 not seen many collections this year in bloom, but I hope those 

 of your readers who grow them (and I trust they will increase 

 in number) will tell us how theirs have prospered. Some of 

 the blooms in my little collection were perfect. There was 

 one small plant of Waterhouse's Conqueror which for the first 

 time threw up a truss of seven ; and of these seven, one was 

 If inch across, three l£ inch, and four If inch. These do not 

 equal the marvellous tales of trusses 10 inches across, to which 

 my friend $ refers in this month's " Gossip," but they certainly 

 formed a very fine truss. With regard to the statements there 

 alluded to, there must be some mistake ; but whatever be the 

 exact size, I have no hesitation in saying that I never saw any 

 grower that was, to use a homely expression, " fit to hold a 

 candle " to Dr. Plant, and a few hints from him would indeed 

 be " golden counsels " to the growers of Auriculas ; though I 

 have but little doubt that the fine climate of Ireland, so free 

 from the extremes of heat and cold, has something to do with 

 it. In the lists given of Auriculas there is generally a fault, 

 I think, in that the several points of the flower are not sejm- 

 rately noticed. I have endeavoured to remedy this in the list 

 printed at page 182. I have taken as my standard that which 

 Glenny recommends in his " Properties of Flowers." Viewed 

 by this it will be seen that there is hardly a perfect Auricula 

 grown, and that some of the most celebrated flowers have great 

 defects ; but this does not at all imply that they ought not to 

 be grown, or that they are not show flowers. I beg to be 

 understood as only describing the flowers from my bloom of 

 them, but so far they are faithful. I have not in any instance 

 trusted to memory, but have had the flowers before me when 

 writing the description. They may be different to those given 

 by others, but I believe it is only by obtaining the combined 

 experiences of various growers that we snail arrive at a good 



