80 
beauty. No flower can be considered in fu’I 
bloom till the middle pips are expantled ; and 
most likely in Lancashire and Yorkshire they 
are not so forward by seven or eight days. To 
draw these flowers up by glass or any other 
artificial heat is highly improper, I having tried 
the experiment frequently, but without success. 
It is not as with roses, pinks, &c. &c. they will 
neither answer with fire nor dung heat — they 
will not stand forcing. I admit they want 
more attention during the blooming season, 
than probably the whole year besides. Around 
London, so many fine plants of the choicest 
sorts have always been spoilt by nursing them 
as they do their geraniums, that is, by keeping 
their plants under glass so many weeks, night 
and day. Many florists keep their lights con- 
tinually over their flowers, day as well as night, 
from the 1st of January till the 1st of May, 
and only admit a current of air behind their 
fi'araes — this is the rock, fatal to bloom, so 
many split on. — ^This mode of treatment, I am 
convinced, is highly improper ^ it draws up 
the flower stem, and renders it weak and 
spindling, in a state unfit to bear or produce a 
bold truss. To bloom an Auricula in perfec- 
tion, it does not require to be continually under 
glass night and day longer than twcnty-foiu: 
