8 



The best proof of the rising public favour is, the 

 fact that florists began to make it a prominent portion 

 of their stocks. Thus we find its varieties enumerated 

 in all their catalogues of the period ; and Mr. James 

 Justice, one of the best amateur collectors of his day, 

 boasts, in his " Scots' Gardener's Director," published 

 in 1754, that he had the largest collection of Auri- 

 culas in Europe. 



Soon after, flourished Matthew Kenney, a gardener 

 by profession, and who Mr. Hogg mentions as, per- 

 haps, one of the most successful and eminent growers 

 of Auriculas at that time, and won as many prizes as 

 most men during the course of ten or twelve years 

 when he lived at Totteridge, Middlesex. He certainly 

 had all the benefit of air, situation, and soil, which, 

 coupled with his fondness for the flower, and his skil- 

 ful treatment of it, to say nothing of his being almost 

 constantly in the garden, gave him a decided supe- 

 riority over many of his competitors, and ensured, as 

 it were, his chance of success. He always kept by 

 him a quantity of sound stable loam, of rather a sandy 

 nature ; this he sweetened by frequent turning. His 

 next principal ingredient was sheep-dung and hay 

 litter, well rotted by being turned, mixed, and fer- 

 mented in the same manner as the gardener does 

 horse-dung and straw htter. This he never made 

 use of under 12 or 18 months, when it had the ap- 

 pearance of leaf or fine vegetable mould ; sometimes 



