.February 22,1883. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 161 
I am now just stirring the surface, and shall leave the plants there 
at any rate until potting time, when I may perhaps take them up 
and pot them, putting in their place a fresh supply of younger 
plants. Of course leaving them in this way exposed in the summer 
is very different to leaving them in pots exposed to all weathers, 
for then a stoppage of drainage or a soddened condition of soil 
is sure to tell injuriously on the plants. Even although they may 
for a time look healthy, like the brilliant colour of a consumptive 
patient it is the sure presage of decay. 
I have not during the past season removed my plants from the 
position they have had since May last under a hedge facing north. 
There seem to me several advantages in this. It is a great saving 
of trouble—no small matter where one has to look after them 
oneself. Then, as most of our heavy rains come from the S.W., 
from which wind the frames are sheltered by the hedge, there is 
not so great a likelihood of the rain beating into the frames or of 
drip, while it is much more easy to give air in windy weather. 
I have one frame of Picotees facing south, and during one of our 
late severe gales the light was lifted clean off and deposited on a 
bed of Tea Roses without, strange to say, breaking one pane of 
glass, but considerably damaging the heads of the Rose plants. 
In the more sheltered position of the Auricula frames this would 
not have happened. Moreover, I think that the plants are kept 
in a more equable condition, as when exposed to the south warm 
sunny days are apt to in some way stimulate them, and they 
require much more watering than when left in a place where 
they are not so exposed to being dried out. 
This unfrequent watering is facilitated by the use of the glazed 
pots, against which there was an outcry as being subversive of all 
the theories about porous pots, and it was said that it would be 
useless to grow them in such hermetically sealed receptacles. I 
can testify that they grow well in them, that the plants do not 
require nearly as much water, while no green matter accumulates 
on their outsides ; while the contrast between the dark colour of 
the pot, and the mealy foliage of some kinds and the bright 
green of others, is very pleasing to the eye, and this particularly 
struck me when looking at the fine collection of my late friend Mr. 
Woodhead, who used nothing else. By-the-by, I noticed lately 
that Mr. Thomson, the accomplished gardener at Drumlanrig, 
stated that he used nothing else in his Orchid house (I think it 
was) : we shall therefore probably hear no more of the unscientific 
character of such a proceeding, and, as far as my present experi¬ 
ence goes, I should like to have all my collection in glazed pots. 
In the matter of top-dressing I must confess to having made a 
change from the old-established traditions of former days. We 
used to be told to take out as much as we could of the old com¬ 
post and fill it in with fresh ; but when I find so experienced a 
grower as Mr. B. Simonite questioning the desirability of top- 
dressing at all, and saying that at any rate he should only remove 
just the very surface, that the roots proceeding from the neck 
never care to root into the fresh material, it was time to think 
of altering “the rules of procedure,” and I do not think that 
I have had any cause to regret having done so. Here again will 
be a great saving of trouble. I believe that instead of, as the 
older growers used to advise, putting richer compost, it is better 
to use more loam and less manure than in that in which they 
were potted. 
I have been greatly puzzled by the manner in which Heap’s 
Smiling Beauty has deceived me. The plants I had have grown 
smaller, and this is, I find, the case with some others. Now this 
opens up a question which I should like to have ventilated in a 
quiet and reasonable manner—whether there is such a thing as 
strains in Auriculas ; whether from some cause or another certain 
persons obtain a decidedly better strain of some varieties than 
of others. Where, for instance, did the green-edged variety of 
Oliver’s Lovely Ann originate ? It came out as a grey edge, and 
is most frequently seen in that class, but as a grey it is not com¬ 
parable to the green-edged variety. Then is there not something 
peculiar in the strain of Lightbody’s Richard Headly which my 
friend Mr. Tymons possesses? I believe at any rate he is forced 
to consider that there is, from the number of applications for 
plants that he has had. Then, again, the strain of (Jol. Taylor, 
held by Mr. Wilson of Halifax, seems to be superior to most 
others. I myself had a strain of an old, and indeed indifferent, 
flower—Popplewell’s Conqueror, which was far superior to any¬ 
thing I had seen elsewhere, and at times really gave a respectable 
exhibition truss. Mr. Simonite has, he believes, a peculiarly fine 
6train of George Lightbody ; while I have beard another grower 
complain of its doing badly with him, as if he had an inferior 
strain. 
Next to the pleasure of looking at our own collection is that 
of looking at others. This pleasure I have had twice lately in 
seeing Mr. Simonite’s at Sheffield, extensive and excellent, with 
all its treasure of seedlings, and that of my friend Mr. Robins 
of St. John’s near Lewisham. This is remarkable for the large 
number of varieties grown—160, and as one of the few cases in 
which the love of the flower has appeared in the metropolis. 
His collection looked in excellent health. The plants were all in 
small-sized pots and gave promise of future excellence. There was, 
unhappily, a cloud hanging over them, for Mr. Robins expected 
to have to leave them shortly for a little trip to Vancouver’s 
Island, and would consequently not be here to see them in flower. 
To a lover of the Auricula this is a great trial, but “ business is 
business,” and to it Auriculas even must give way ; but his small 
back garden is now very interesting, and shows that where there 
is a real love of the flower it can be cultivated, and well cultivated, 
even in the midst of a densely crowded neighbourhood.—D., Deal. 
VINES IN LIME RUBBISH. 
Provoked by my brown Hamburghs and the timber and crops 
of the Tweed Vineyard, and your and Mr. Thomson’s advice, I 
must try to surprise you. In 1862, when building my house here 
on 1000 feet of mere gravel, with 2 feet of light soil above, I ran 
a pit due south from it 90 by 16 feet, avd 6 feet deep, for a vinery, 
span-roof. I filled up, say, 2 or 3 feet at the bottom with stones and 
foundry rubbish that would defy water to trouble the roots above 
them. To level this quarry the mason removed all his freestone 
chips and lime rubbish, and spread them over it, and then I laid 
in the best soil I could get and planted my Vines. Now 1 have 
dug out all the original soil to replace it with imported strong soil 
and old turf that would delight any Grape-grower, running a 
trench in the centre of the house down to the bottom rubbish, and 
carefully disentangling all the Vine roots for their new soil. 
We were astonished to find few roots in what we considered 
our best soil near the surface ; but by-and-by we cut through 
about 4 inches thick of lime and freestone chips about 3 feet 
from the surface, and I am sure had any gardener seen how all 
but the whole Vine roots were packed into and protruded from 
this layer of lime rubbish—standing out from it like a brush into 
the central cut through the vinery bed—he, like us, would have 
“ sucked the finger of astonishment.” All these twenty years 
gardeners had wasted their brains and backs mixing up in the 
Vine borders (all the roots are inside) everything imaginable— 
bone dust, soot, and sewage—to coax the Vine roots to near the 
surface, and now these ungrateful wretches have dived down 
through all our tasty and superior soils and been living in that 
layer of lime rubbish ! Now we regretted not having a photo 
made of the brush protruding through the lime. Seeing is often 
the only proof of a story. However, we have got from a burned- 
down house many cartloads of apparently exactly the same lime 
and chip-stoned rubbish that my Vines loved so dearly, and mixed 
it freely with the heaps of old turf and grand strong loam, and if 
the roots do not soon revel in this I shall call them ungrateful. 
Long ago I led a branch of a Hamburgh from the vinery into 
the adjoining conservatory as a roof shade for my flowers ; and 
though you may forget your explanations why my Hamburghs in 
the conservatory were blue-black and their brothers with only 
glass between them were whitey-brown in the vinery ; and while 
the roots of the conservatory Vine are being relaid in the vinery, 
and only a heat of 40° or so kept in the conservatory, the Vines 
there have shoots 3 and 4 inches long to-day to our amazement, 
whatever Vine doctors like you may think of such proceedings. I 
do not believe one Vine root has moved as yet. “ Now to grow 
Vines without roots,” is the Vine sap so condensed in the old 
stems that there is enough of it to send out the shoots 3 or 4 inches 
long ere the roots are of the least use as feeders ? It is all bother¬ 
ation to your old attache. —J. Mackenzie, M.D. 
[Vines usually produce more than 3 or 4 inches of growth 
before root-action commences.] 
WORK. F01 l THE WEEK,. <3 
Will 
t v W7 — 
\By the most skilful Cultivators in the several Departments.'] 
HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 
Protection .—The fickleness of our climate ought to induce more 
attention to protection of the trees in early spring than has hitherto 
been given to it. High walls, fences, and belts of trees do much, 
but cold north-eastern winds swoop over them upon every 
