JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
( 
340 
[ April 28, 1881. 
the flower and determines by its nature the class to which a 
variety belongs. I will gather into one word the share which 
the flower in all its classes should apportion to all its zones, and 
that word is “Balance.” Taking the pistil as the centre, then 
across the half flower in a radius line, the tube, the paste, the body, 
and the edge should be balanced by equal breadths. The tube 
should be bold and golden and thrum-eyed, the paste quite its 
proper breadth, and indeed rather over in the case of the seifs in 
which the body-colour really represents two zones ; and therefore 
for a good balance the paste should represent rather more than 
one, or it will look narrow. The body flashes into the edge, but 
must not run out at the petal corners, and it must not be alto¬ 
gether flashes, but have a solid riDg, and the more solid the better 
—without this the pencilling is thin and scratchy. 
Culture. —As to the culture of the florist Auricula, it is not 
within the province of this lecture to give you a complete calendar 
of cultural operations. But it is amusing for a moment to peep 
into the potting sheds of the past old masters. It was a select 
school of cookery for the Auricula, in which the plants themselves 
were often victimised. The compost heaps were not so much an 
honest provision shop for the flower as its confectioners or drug¬ 
gists, where it was forced either to make itself ill with sickly 
sweets or was overdosed with dire stimulants till, after a flash of 
burning wasteful life, it died. One professor of long ago writing 
in dialogue conducts a horrified neophyte round his compost yard, 
where the young beginner is completely upset by an inspection 
of horrible effects from the slaughter house, sugar refinery, and 
other sources of refuse. “ Our compost,” says the master, over a 
vile compound, “is now in fine killing order ; it would poison an 
Oak tree 1 ” No ! cut for your plants a few sods from a pasture 
which the Buttercups will tell you is sound and 
rich. Ramble in the woods, and instead of a cor¬ 
nucopia of wild flowers bring back what you can 
carry of mellow leaf soil. Ask the gardener for a 
little slice of the hotbeds that grew last year’s 
Melons or Cucumbers. Make about equal parts of 
all you have with, say, charcoal to keep it open, and 
you have all the Auriculas will care to ask for. 
As for the rest, keep their feet warm— i.e., their 
roots well drained ; their clothes dry in winter— 
i.e., their leaves from wet. Remember that while 
the plant itself is hardy beyond limit, yet its re¬ 
fined blossoms are inexpressibly tender; that it be¬ 
longs to the pretty family that loves a partial shade. 
Think how the bare trees and hedges let in all the 
winter sun upon the sleeping Primroses ; how the 
young leaves on the boughs temper the sunshine 
over them in spring, and the full leafage hides them 
from it all the summer; and if you wish to grow 
seedlings which you should, be as much like Nature 
to them as you can. Sow them when she does— 
as soon as ripe ; cover them as she does, which will 
be not at all, except by something that may repre¬ 
sent the agencies of shade and moisture under which 
the young seeds grow, say a piece of glass over their cradle pot, 
and when they bloom they will be a great reward. 
Here I draw to its close my story of a florist flower. I have 
wished to show you what a store of interest it has for the true 
florist. He may be a toiling man pent up in a dirty ugly town, 
but here is a flower that will smile to him in that capacity, and 
look a contentment that imparts itself, thriving as though the 
smoke drifts were but natural clouds, and the dry hard shadows 
fell from waving boughs. He has his few plants, and he will see 
more of Nature’s features and variety in a frame of Auriculas 
than another who has no heart, and so no eyes, for such things, 
will notice in a whole landscape. In that innocent taste there is 
a pleasure very deep and lasting ; and how much does the com¬ 
panionship of a friend like-minded add to it ! The florist would 
rather have the steady continual sympathy of a brother florist the 
year round than beat a dozen strange competitors at a show. He 
must needs feel proud of his plants on their exhibition day, but 
that short excitement is only a small part of his whole pleasure 
and reward. Mere money profit is no motive in his attachment 
to his rural tastes and floral favourites. 
At the exhibition tables a good loser and a modest winner, he 
is not the sordid mercenary man of whom there might be said, as 
it sparkles in the wit of Thomas Hood, that for him “ the great 
god Pan is dead, and Pot reigns in his stead ! ” 
It is remarkable how those who have loved this flower have 
loved it to the last. I could tell you of George Lightbody, who 
in a long illness would have a favourite Auricula at the bedside, 
and plants brought up that he might see what needed to be done ; 
of Robert Trail, who past his eighty years, came to see the flowers 
of his raising in our hands at the Northern Show ; of Richard 
Headly keeping to a few Auriculas among the last of all his 
flowers ; of old Robin Lancashire coming from his famed florist 
county to my own of the white Rose to see the Auriculas, and his 
eye, bright with an “ unfamiliar brine,” at the sight of Lanca¬ 
shire’s Hero in his great glory. 
It is no small thing to say of a favourite flower that it has been 
the first cause of many true companionships and fast friendships 
that will endure till all human interests here are at an end 
for us. 
A PLANT PIT. 
Can you aid me in erecting a plain, useful, and inexpensive 
pit for the growth of Cucumbers and Tomatoes in summer, and 
decorative plants such as Primulas, Cinerarias, bulbs, &c., in 
spring? I have heard of “sunken pits,” but have no clear idea of 
what they are. Any assistance or instructions will be highly 
appreciated by “ An Ardent Amateur with Small Means.” 
For the benefit of our correspondent and others whose “ small 
means ” deter them from erecting elaborate structures, we submit 
the following instructions from the April number of the 
Gardener. 
“ In the erection of pits, the conservation of heat by the means of 
‘ mother earth ’ is very often under-estimated, if not ignored alto¬ 
gether. I think there is nothing that we can do with more 
advantage to our plants than endeavour to have them rather under 
ground than above it. The further a house or pit is raised above 
ground, the more it catches the bitter blast in winter. The roof we 
must have exposed ; but why have the walls also exposed, when they 
can be built for less money, and heated at less cost afterwards, by 
having nothing exposed to the elements but the glass roof? And 
not only is it of advantage in heating in winter, but it is of great 
advantage in the maintenance of more genial moist atmosphere in 
hot dry weather in summer, as everyone can testify who has had 
experience of such pits, or given the thing serious consideration. 
For a range of useful pits I would suggest something like what is 
represented in the accompanying section. Supposing a a to be the 
ground-line, mark off and level the soil where the outside walls are 
to be, and run it hard so that there is no chance of its sinking. On 
this build your outside walls, placing at intervals of 6 or 8 feet under 
the wall a right-angle elbow 3-inch sanitary pipe, socket end up, as 
shown at b b. By placing three bricks on edge round its end, and 
breaking off the end of the brick just above this pipe, a connection 
with the inside of the pit is secured. Another pipe, placed in the 
socket at b, will rise above the eaves of the pit; and to prevent wet 
entering, a tin or zinc cover can be supported 3 inches above the pipe 
by three pieces of stout wire, to fit inside the sockets. These will 
form ventilators which may in most cases be left open, except in 
severe weather; but when desirable to have them at command, a 
small shutter to each inside can easily be applied. When the mortar 
is sufficiently set, the spaces between the walls d d and also e e may 
be filled up with the soil excavated for a footpath c, building a wall 
on each side in the usual way. The space between the pits should be 
in the form of a gutter, asphalted, and made to carry the water to 
tanks inside the pits. These gutters should be 18 inches or 2 feet 
wide, and if the ventilators are placed alternately there will be plenty 
of room for cleaning out, attending to shading in summer, or applying 
mats or other coverings in the winter. A drain-pipe under the ashes 
in the beds will carry part of the water (otherwise wasted) back to the 
tanks. The inside arrangement of this pit is specially adapted to the 
growing of decorative plants of dwarf growth, such as Cyclamens, 
Fig. 78. 
