HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 199 



strong, erect, and high enough to raise the truss of flowers above 

 the foliage. The individual footstalk, sufficiently strong to support 

 the flower, and of a proportional length to the number of pips, so 

 that thej may not crowd each other, and which should not be less 

 than seven in number, that the truss may be close and compact, and 

 form somewhat a half globe. The tube containing the anthers, the 

 eye, and the exterior circle, ought to be well proportioned, which 

 will be the case if the diameter of the tube be one part, the eye 

 three, and the whole pip six or seven. If edged the margin should 

 be about equal with the next inner circle. The edges ought to be 

 smooth, having no serrature, so as to appear starry, and the limb or 

 upper surface, flat and even. The nearer the outline approaches 

 to a perfect circle the better, although the very best flowers do not 

 quite come up to this point as yet. Whatever the colours, they 

 should be clear, bold, and distinct, and divided in a perfect circle, 

 or the dark markings form a circle next the eye, and extend out 

 towards the outer rim on each lobe, so as to form so many half cir- 

 cles. In the selfs the colours ought to be uniform, bright and 

 solid, or shaded off towards the outer margin distinctly and clear. 

 Around the cultivation of nature's greatest beauties there is gen- 

 erally a halo of mystery thrown. When any thing of this kind 

 becomes recognized as a general favorite, speculative ideas, and 

 vague theories have each a portion of precedence, and as some of 

 these peculiarities happen to succeed, they are lauded, made public, 

 and the tyro catches up the most ridiculous notions. Our present 

 subject has not entirely escaped from this general contagion, for if 

 we refer to some old and long established growers of the Auricula, 

 we find that one thinks that the rotted down roots of the Willow, 

 is the only matrix in which it will approach perfection; others again 

 suppose, that nothing is so suitable as rushes decomposed into 

 mould, and a portion of the same material cut short in afresh state, 

 and strewed over the drainage ; while some will not believe in any 

 fertilizer, but blood, mixed up with maiden earth, and laid together 

 for a season. Now all these materials are well enough in their 

 place for other things besides the Auricula, but to say that they are 

 absolutely necessary, and that nothing else will produce the same' 



