, AURICULA. 243 



must be manured and dug before winter, and, when 

 finely reduced by frost, as early in February as 

 the soil has sufficient dryness, the roots should be 

 planted an inch below the surface, taking care to 

 place the buds uppermost. Free watering is requi- 

 site in dry weather; and when the blow is full, a 

 few mats, supported by hoops, may be used to screen 

 the sun and prolong the period of beauty. When 

 the leaves have decayed and the soil is very dry, 

 the roots may be taken up, and either rubbed free 

 of earth or washed and dried in the shade. They 

 may be kept in a box or drawer in any apartment, 

 avoiding the roasting heat of a garret or the rot- 

 ting damp of a cellar. 



Auricula. Nature has given such a finish to 

 the finer specimens of this plant that art may well 

 be required to furnish them with the shelter of a 



the offending term, he takes refuge in the conviction, that where- 

 ever the garden reader becomes also the garden cultivator, (and 

 that is the author's aim,) the antipathy will wear off, by that law 

 of our nature which makes things, unseemly in themselves, look 

 well when viewed in their seemly effects. As an instance of this 

 kind, at least similar in some respects: No eye ever loved the 

 angular and uncouth hieroglyphics of a dead tongue, but the sight 

 is endured till they get incorporated with the soil of moral culti- 

 vation : and then the deformity altogether disappears, and the 

 virtue springs up on the rich field that glows with the flowers of 

 Grecian poetry, and the fruits of Hebrew piety: So amidst laden 

 trees and flowery walks that which at first offends loses all power 

 of offence when seen in its beautifying effects, and familiarly known 

 as the source of all that is fair and fruitful in the scene. And of 

 all the manipulations detailed in this treatise, there is none the 

 author values more than the art of augmenting and economically 

 using the pabulum vitce of the garden the very heart of its living 

 frame. 



