20 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



Selections of Auricula. — The following are the 

 mo«it noteworthy varieties : — 



Show and Edged Varieties. 



Green-edged. 

 Anna (Trail) . 

 Mrs. Moore (Douglas). 

 Rev. F. D. Horner (Simo- 

 nite ) . 



Colonel Taylor (Leigh). 

 Freedom (Booth). 

 Lycurgus (Smitli). 

 Prince of Greens (Trail). 

 Talisman (Simouite). 



Grey-edged. 

 Alexander Meiklejnhn (Kay), 

 C. E. Brown (Headly). 

 Confidence (Campbell). 

 Dr. Horner (Eead). 

 George Levick (Walker). 

 George L'ghtbody (Headly). 

 Lancashire Hero (Lanca-h.). 

 Eichard Headly (LigMbody). 

 Victor (Eead). 



Alpine Varieties 



Wldte-cdged. 

 I Acme (Eead). 

 i Beauty (Trail). 

 I Glory (Taylor), 

 j John Simonite (Walker) . 

 I Conservative (Douglas). 

 ' Lady Sophia Dumaresque 

 (Lightbody). 

 Silvia (Douglas). 

 Eegular (A&hworth). 



Selfs. 



Blackbird (Spalding). 

 C. J. Perry (Turner), 

 i Clipper (Turner). 

 I Heroine (Horner). 

 I Ellen Lancaster (Pohlmaii). 

 : Lord of Lorne (Lightbody). 

 Pizarro (Campbell). 

 Euby (Eead). 

 Topsy (Kay). 



Amelia Hartwidge ( Douglas) . 

 George Lightbody (Turner). 

 Sailor Prince (Turner). 

 Unique (Turner). 

 Colonel Scott (Turner). 

 Diadem (Gorton). 

 John Ball (.Turner). 



King of the Belgians(Turner). 

 Mercury (Turner). 

 Mrs. Ball (Turner). 

 Napoleon III. (.Turner). 

 Phoenix (Turner). 

 Slough Eival (Turner). 

 Topsy (Turner). 



Of double Auriculas, the black and yellow are well 

 known. Purpurea (purple), and Delicata (primrose), 

 are both very fine, with large double flowers, and 

 other striking types are being raised. 



The laced varieties have not yet reached a stage of 

 development to admit of named varieties being put 

 into commerce ; but seed can be had anywhere. 



THE LIFE-HISTOEY OF PLANTS. 



By Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, F.E.S. 



GROWTH, SEEDS, BUDS, ETC. 



THE degree of excellence at ^^•hich practical gar- 

 dening has arrived must be attributed mainly 

 to the accumulated teachings of experience. Every 

 gardener, be he professional or be he amateur, has 

 to learn his business mainly from experience. No 

 amount of book-learning or help from others can 

 supply the want of this quality. This truth it is 

 which leads unreflecting persons to uphold what 

 they call practice at the expense of what they con- 

 sider theory, and, as they imagine, to confound all 

 opponents by the statement that " an ounce of fact is 

 worth more than a pound of theory." Such persons 

 do not trouble themselves to consider whether their 

 so-called facts are deserving that name, or whether 

 what they conceive to be theory is rightly so entitled. 



Experience, whether gained by the indi-\ddual 

 himself — the most valuable of all — or whether 

 handed down as a tradition from his predecessors, 

 is in any case only the result of conscious or un- 



conscious inference from observed phenomena. The 

 observation may be correct, it is ahnost certain to be 

 incomplete; the inference maybe just, it is almost 

 certain to be faulty. A perfect theory implies the 

 elimination of all error, whether of observation or 

 of inference. Such a consummation is rare indeed 

 in any science, and unattainable in any department of 

 natural history. But in a practical art like gardening 

 it will, at any rate, be admitted that the more per- 

 fect the observation and the more correct the infer- 

 ence, the more valuable will the experience and the 

 practice founded upon them be. This being so, the 

 necessity of knowing something of the nature oi 



Fig. 1.— Slice through a Lily-bulb, showing the conical 

 growing point enveloped in a number of fleshy scales, 

 from which it derives its nourishment in the first in- 

 stance, and the roots which help to supply food when 

 that in the scales is exhausted. 



the plant, and of the way in which it lives, feeds, 

 breathes, grows, propagates, dies, will at once be 

 admitted, and will serve as our excuse, if any be 

 needed, for devoting some space to the life-history 

 of the plant ; in other words, to its general structure 

 and to the work which its several parts Individ ually 

 and collectively do, and to the means whereby that 

 work is either helped or hindered. 



Were science perfect, it is probable that every 

 detail would be found of more or less direct practical 

 importance ; but in its present fragmentary and im- 

 perfect state there are whole departments in which 

 we either know little or nothing definitely, or in 

 which imperfect observations and conflicting views 

 necessitate further studv and discussion on the part 



