May 14, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOETICULTURE AND COTTAGE GAKDENER. 



379 



bad from Is. 6(f. to 2s. i'ld. a-plant ; and if any money is laid I 

 out on plants during the year, an amateur who is really fond 

 of them would hardly begrudge the few shillings required to 

 lay the foundation of a collection. 



As to raising Auriculas from seed, there is nothing in which 

 the celebrated direction of Mrs. Criasse (did she ever give it?) 

 is more needful — first catch your hare — i.e., first get good 

 seed ; for this is well nigh an impossibility, for these reasons : 

 1, The growers of Auriculas are few. In the county iu which 

 I live (Kent) I do not believe there is another grower, and I 

 very rarely in the south of England hear of a collection. 

 %, Those who grow them either do not grow seed, or, if they 

 <3o, they keep in their own hands the beat hybridised seed for 

 the purpose of raising seedlings. Most growers have the idea 

 that seed ripening weakens the plant ; and hence, as soon as 

 the blooming is over it is picked off. I may mention as a 

 proof of this difficulty that I have known £8 an ounce to be 

 offered for it, and yet the owner of the collection was not able 

 to save a scrap of it. And after all, what a very difficult thing 

 it is to raise a good seedling Auricula ! Take the case of Mr. 

 <!>eorge Lightbody, of Falkirk, who for upwards of thirty years 

 was a raiser of seedlings, intelligent, careful, and with the 

 perseverance of his nation strongly developed ; and yet on 

 looking at the last list he ever published I do not think that 

 there are above three or four flowers at most that will be re- 

 membered a dozen years hence. I should therefore, taking all 

 these things into consideration, advise " J. A." first of all to 

 procure a few plants of such Auriculas as I have named, and 

 then try to save his own seed. He can hybridise them, and so 

 probably obtain a better strain of seed. 



And now supposing the seed to be " by hcok or crook " ob- 

 tained, let us see how to proceed. It is best to sow it iu pans, 

 and the soil used should be light and rich — Hght sandy mould 

 and well-rotted cow dung, with some sharp saud or some similar 

 compost. The pan should be thoroughly well drained, and 

 the compost when placed in it should rise iu the middle, gra- 

 dually sloping towards the side. The seed should be sown not 

 too thickly, covered with finely sifted mould, and then be 

 watered with a very fine rose. This should be done early iu 

 4he year — February or JIarch ; and if there is the convenience 

 ■of a hotbed or stove it would be well to give them the advan- 

 tage of it, so as to produce rapid germination. Should moss 

 accumulate, the surface should be lightly stirred ; and as soon 

 as the plants are up the pans should be placed either in the 

 •open air or in some cool place. The advantage of heat for 

 causing the germination of the seed is obvious, but at the same 

 time it must be remembered that the pans ought not to be 

 exposed to heavy rains. About the month of July, when the 

 plants will have grown sufficiently for the purpose, they should 

 be transplanted into thumb pots, or several may be placed in 

 a pan, iu a compost similar to that in which the full-grown 

 jiiants are kept, and should in all respects be treated as offsets 

 or small plants would be. They will not bloom until the 

 eecond or third year. 



In what I have said I have had in my mind the finer, or 

 ehow varieties as they are called. It is much easier to procure 

 seed of Alpine Auriculas, and they are very handsome, but 

 will never in the eye of a true florist compare with the more 

 refined show varieties. — D., Deal. 



THE PACKING AND TEANSIT OF PLANTS, &c. 

 The packing of plants for travel must be regarded as one of 

 the most important departments connected with our now im- 

 mense and rapidly-increasing commerce iu tender plants ; and , 

 generally speaking, it is well understood and efficiently per- 

 formed by those whom it concerns. Often have we admired 

 the laborious care, and firmness and solidity of the manner in 

 which professional packers perform this important part of the 

 plant-merchant's business. This rule, however, as is not to be 

 wondered at, is not without many exceptions. The transit of 

 plants after they are packed, notwithstanding these days of 

 swift travel, is a matter attended with much anxiety to the 

 receiver, and no doubt also to the sender of packages of tender 

 plants. It has become scarcely possible to divine when a pack- 

 age that has to pass over several railways by goods trains will 

 come to hand, while to send heavy packages by passenger 

 trains so augments their cost that such a course cannot be 

 adopted. The parcel post and firing trains leave scarcely a 

 desire to be realised iu the sale and speedy transmit of light 

 packages. It is in the belief that these two sides of the 

 question have become very obvious to many concerned, that 



we have selected the subject as one worthy of remark and 

 suggestion. 



There are descriptions of plants which cannot be tampered 

 with, in order to lessen cither the bulk or the weight of the 

 packages which contain them, and that must be sent by slow 

 trains to avoid the enormous expense of the fast trains, even 

 supposing it were practicable to have all these carried by bucU 

 trains, which it is not; but there are other classes of plants 

 which it is simply ridiculous to pack and send as they are yet 

 far too generally packed and sent. We now refer more especi- 

 ally to the enormous quantities of comparatively hardy soft- 

 wooded plants that are sent hither and thither on long journeys 

 in the spring and early summer months. We will suppose a 

 quantity of such plants — say Pelargoniums — bought iu a 

 nursery in small pots. Now, such plants are generally turned 

 out of their pots and have something wrapped round their 

 balls, and packed on their sides, layer above layer, in square 

 hampers. When pitched into the railway truck they are an 

 enormous weight, chiefly of comparatively useless soil ; and by 

 the time they reach their destination, we need not try to 

 describe what the bottom layers of balls and plants are gene- 

 rally found — a mixture of smashed balls of earth, moss, and 

 broken plants. The other method is to moss and tie down the 

 balls in the pots, and often to fix a stake to each plant, and 

 pack at enormous labour on their bottoms in large round flat 

 hampers, or to pack on their sides, as in the case of those 

 turned out of their pots. Those packed on their bottoms 

 travel, as a rule, well, but at what a cost for a given amount 

 of plants ! The carpenters' shavings, or stable litter, or straw, 

 hampers, hazel rods, and mats, far outweigh the goods. When 

 placed on their sides in pots, the broken pots are too often 

 added to the mixture of soil, moss, and broken plants. 



Now we believe this order of aft'airs is not solely chargeable 

 to nurserymen, but to the erroneous ideas that the receivers of 

 such " orders" hold as to the safety of the plants. We have 

 to suggest to both parties that if those who order such goods 

 as we are now speaking of — let us take for instance a consign- 

 ment of Pelargoniums, despatched any time in April — would 

 " order " that all the soil should be shaken from the plants, 

 carefully preserving the roots : pack them top to top and root 

 to root, not mingling roots with tops, in a small light hamper, 

 using nothing but pliable paper round the inside of the hamper 

 (no damp moss nor heavy heating rubbish of that sort), and 

 despatching such by passenger train, they would in most cases 

 reach their destination as soon as the nurseryman's letter of 

 advice. In this case there would scarcely be a bruised leaf, 

 and the roots not so much injured as when the balls get broki.'U. 

 on the journey; and, after being potted in fresh soil, they 

 would look better than before they were shaken out. The 

 passenger carriage would not be more than that by goods train, 

 and the time on the journey in the one case a fraction of the 

 time in the other. This is no mere fancy picture ; we have 

 tried it over and over again, and it is an advantage to both, for 

 the packer does his work far quicker in the one case, and the 

 pots are saved, for which an allowance is made. The absurd 

 practice in the mode we recommend is the packing of shaken- 

 out plants with a layer of damp moss and shavings, which not 

 only necessitates a larger hamper and a heavier package, but it 

 is at the same time a positive evil. Whatever Is placed iu 

 layers around such goods should be light and perfectly dry, 

 and we think paper the best. 



Many such plants are not despatched to the country till they 

 are required for planting; and in the case of Geraniums and 

 many other similar plants we would say. Shake the soil fn m 

 them, for no one would ever think of planting with ball entire 

 such plants matted in small pots. A partial " shake-out " 

 would of course be best ; but of two evils the total shake-out 

 is far less than that of planting with a ball like a bullet, and 

 we have invariably noticed that plants shaken-out grew the 

 most satisfactorily, to say nothing of the lightness of package, 

 and swiftness and certainty of Iriusit. 



One of the greatest evils connected with packing for a five or 

 six days' transit is that of packing with damp material; it 

 heats by the way, and even when it does not heat, plants out 

 of perfectly dry, always look and do better at once than those 

 turned out of damp material. 



We are very much surprised that paper-shavings — so clean, 

 so light, so springy and elastic, and consfqueutly so warm — 

 have not been more used by plantsmen for packing, particu- 

 larly moderate packages of tender plants. We once sent a 

 package of plants to France, packed with paper-shavings ex- 

 clusively in a large but light box, and the receiver was quite 



