124 THE AURICULA. 



destroy, their flowers, which they were so anxious 

 to preserve. Weak minds are soon misled by 

 quackery and novelty, having no sound judgment of 

 their own; and quackery, even in the growing of 

 flowers, has as many followers as in any other line. 

 By having recourse to hot manures, with the nature 

 and strength of which they are unacquainted, they 

 very often burn and poison, as it were, their plants 

 beyond all recovery, and learn experience only by 

 nearly the total destruction of their whole collec- 

 tion. 



The late Matthew Kenney, gardener by pro- 

 fession, was, perhaps, one of the most successful and 

 eminent growers of Auriculas in his day, and won 

 as many prizes as most men, during the course of 

 ten or twelve years that he lived at Totteridge, in 

 Middlesex. He certainly had all the benefit of air, 

 situation, and soil, which, coupled with his fondness 

 for the flower, and his skilful treatment of it, to say 

 nothing of his being almost constantly in the garden, 

 gave him a decided superiority over many of his 

 competitors, and ensured, as it were, his chance of 



