THE AURICULA. 



107 



THE AURICULA. 



By the Rev. F. D. Horner, M.A., Burton-in-Lonsdale. 



[Read April 23, 1889.] 



Some one, when asked whether he believed in ghosts or not, 

 replied that, without committing himself to an opinion, he 

 should certainly consider Appearances to be in their favour ! 

 Even so it has been a question, somewhat vexed, whether the 

 Auricula had a ghost of a chance of appearing again, in the 

 south, from the cold shades of obscurity and neglect. I think, 

 however, from what we continue to see of the Auricula at the 

 southern shows of the National Auricula Society, we may con- 

 clude that these appearances are in its favour. 



I do not propose to occupy time now with points of Auricula 

 culture, which are well known to cultivators, and probably are 

 of small import to anybody else. I only remark that the culti- 

 vation seems to become ever less difficult as to composts ; and as 

 to protection, more natural, if we take into account the tender- 

 ness of the acquired beauties, and the constitutional modifications 

 of the florist's Auricula. We afford the plants a shelter more con- 

 genial than it used to be, safer ventilation, and more abundant 

 light, in cool and airy houses. The plants are much happier 

 there than if shut down in closed frames, while even we ourselves 

 are more comfortable, and of more service to them than we could 

 be, by only catching cold outside, looking in, so to say, at the 

 shop windows. 



But I can remember Auriculas set out under garden hedges, 

 much to the advantage of snails and caterpillars ; or kept in cold 

 pits, inducive of vegetable cramps and lung diseases ; or boxed 

 in long-legged glass cases, as if they were scientific objects for a 

 museum. I have seen them in unpicturesque backyards, and I 

 once saw them down an area, on a level with the coalhole. 

 There was slaughter in those days ; and Mr. George Lightbody, 

 of venerable memory in annals of the Auricula, used to tell me 

 that there were some collections which he had under repair 

 regularly every year, replacing with strong plants the dead and 

 gone. 



M 



