246 AURICULA. 



mersed to the lip. The glass cover may be put on 

 at the first to encourage striking, and then kept on 

 or off according to the weather, using the help of 

 a bass matting in every hard frost. Before winter, 

 fill up the vacant inch left on the surface of the 

 pots with old dung gathered from the fields, which 

 replace with fine mould about the time of flowering. 

 To destroy green-fly, with which the plants are apt 

 to be infested, a slight cloud of tobacco fumes, 

 closed for a few minutes under the glass cover, is 

 all that is necessary. 



Should any reader be surprised at the trouble, 

 whether of writing or observing the above direc- 

 tions, it may certainly be inferred that he has 

 never once seen a choice and well managed collec- 



O 



tion of auriculas. Other flowers in congregated 

 array may be more dazzling, but the auricula, so 

 exhibited has no rival in soft, rich, and diversified 

 beauty. It has more of dignity than gayety; it 

 has not the tinsel of a theatre, but the jewellery 

 and grandeur of an assembly of nobles and high 

 dames, in broad ruff, powder, crimson, purple, and 

 ermine. The sight justifies the art. Art cannot 

 make the purple of the auricula; and without art 

 the auricula has not the purple; and the finest 

 forms, left to the common fare of earth and skies, 

 soon becomes the spectres of what they were the 

 gorgeous velvet dwindling to the meanness of hawk- 

 weed, and the crownbroad disk to the dimensions 

 of a daisy. 



Carnations. Of which the technical names are 



