12 THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



tion — the soil and the order of potting. JSTobody now indulge^ in 

 filthy manures for plants, so I shall not waste time in denouncing 

 the mixtures of rank materials that were recommended by the older 

 florists, and of whose ideas and practices Emmerton is a good 

 example. The soil for the auricula mu^t be sweet and mellow. 

 Experience has taught me to prepare every year materials for future 

 use in order to keep them till of a suitable age. Composts for cer- 

 tain subjects improve with age up to a certain point, and after that 

 point is reached, time ceases to be an improver and becomes a 

 destroyer. Therefore the compost heaps should be prepared in 

 succession, and treated in the same order. Let us begin tben with 

 cow-dung rotted to powder, when it has the appearance of black 

 mould. A heap laid up to rot, will require three years to reduce it 

 to this condition. The only other materials required are sound 

 yellow loam, clean and quite rotted leaf-soil, and silver sand free 

 from the brown stones which indicate the presence of iron. To one 

 bushel of rotted cow-dung add one peck of loam, one peck of leaf- 

 soil, and a half-peck of silver sand. Mix well together and break all 

 lumps, but do not sift the mixture. You now have a compost that 

 will grow the auricula to perfection. It is an admirable plan to rot 

 all the materials required for composts under cover, for it is quite 

 certain that long-continued rains wash much of the goodness out of 

 them. But it cannot always be done, so I advise making ridge-like 

 beaps and thatching them with turf-sods, as the next best plan to 

 keeping the materials under cover. When the compost is prepared, 

 keeping under cover is imperatively necessary ; it will soon be 

 ■worthless if exposed to heavy rains. 



There is an interesting question lately mooted as to the best 

 time to re-pot auriculas. The most experienced cultivators differ in 

 opinion on this question, but there can be no doubt the long- 

 established system of potting in autumn is the safest and the most 

 likely to promote a fine spring bloom. Mr. Headley has practised 

 potting in spring with great success ; indeed Mr. Headley grows 

 this flower as well as any that he has ever taken in hand, and his 

 success as a florist is too well known to need a panegyric. In the 

 event of the autumn potting being postponed to a late period of the 

 year, through circumstances beyond the control of the cultivator, 

 spring potting may be practised on the plan "better late than 

 never." I have seen trusses every way equal to the average best, 

 and which -were well placed at shows, on plants that were re-potted 

 in the month of Marcb immediately preceding; nevertheless, the 

 best trusses at shows are as a rule on plants that were potted in 

 autumn, and I give my vote unhesitatingly for potting at the end of 

 July or beginning of August, for then the plants have fully rested, 

 and are just rousing themselves into action again. It is rather an 

 interesting fact, that since spring potting came to be adopted by a 

 few good growers, autumn blooms have been very prevalent. If it 

 can be proved thafc there is any connection between the two, tlien 

 we derive a powerful argument in favour of autumn potting, for it 

 is just the most likely of all influences to prevent autumn blooming, 

 and promote a vigorous bloom in the season proper for auriculas. 



