■Jlay 10, 1683 J 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
377 
fastened. Having arranged (and tied to wires under the roof or 
the Vine shoots) the top tier of shoulders, we next tie up those 
underneath in the same way, taking care that these are brought up 
in a line with the centre of the angle formed by the top ones. The 
•next tier is again angled with these, and so on till we approach 
nearly to the bottom of the bunch. The branches of course become 
■smaller as the bunch tapers to the point. Some here will perhaps 
■contain only four or five berries, but still they should be tied up to 
.fill the vacant space that has been created by raising those above 
'them. This is the principal point to be observed in the manufacture, 
•so to speak, of large bunches, as by these means the berries are 
evenly distributed over as great an amount of space as they can fill 
up M^hen growing to their full size. When this tying out is com- 
ipieted the most tedious part of the work is done, for it will be 
found that very little thinning of the berries will be necessary. A 
few small or imperfectly set ones may require removal, and possibly 
•■a few from the centre of the bunch, but it is seldom indeed that 
more than this is required. By following out these instructions 
-many bunches that when set appear loose and straggling may be 
■converted into large solid bunches. Trebbiano should be tied out 
in the same way, but a little more thinning will be required, because 
the berries often come in clusters, and the footstalks are not so long 
cas those of Gros Guillaume.—H. Dunkin. 
AURICULAS. 
I FEAR that I cannot agree with some of the criticisms of my 
friend, “ D., Deal,'’ upon the London Show of the National 
Auricula Society. He kindly invites “other estimates,” and so 
•disarms contention ; but as I do not come with sword and spear, 
•so there are no such weapons for me to lay aside, but I do think 
Aim under the influence of a few mis-impressions. 
One which, on the whole, is no little mistake, concerns the seifs. 
That there was an undue preponderance of seifs in most of the 
stands—that seifs, as if they were an inferior, are the least ad¬ 
vanced class, and that they are the most easily grown. For my 
own part I showed no greater proportion of seifs than I always do, 
but that is of little consequence. I am not the London Exhibition. 
But I think that the self so enriches and emphasises a group, and is 
so greatly the light, and warmth, and resting-place for the eye 
among the edged flowers, that without the self in full evidence 
the others would be but a dazzle of naked jewels, one sparkling 
against the brilliancies of the others, till only an accustomed eye 
could detect much variety among them. Popularly, indeed, the 
flower is known by its seifs, and many visitors here have said, 
“ Well, except for those lovely ‘ seifs,’ as you call them, I only see 
two or three sorts in the collection ! ” I do not, of course, main¬ 
tain that the self is as powerful and masculine .a flower as the 
perfect green-edge. She is pre-eminently of the gentler sex ; a 
flower to whom some less outward adorning is given by her nature, 
and of whom, therefore, there is that less required. But I would 
accord her abundant honour in what may seem to some her humbler 
spherev but which is, to those who are intimate with the difficulties 
of the self Auricula, a sphere anything but easy to fill with credit. 
The Southern schedule only demands so many dissimilar varieties 
in the stands, and while any marked disproportion of one class is a 
weakness, so that even the emerald green-edges might be overdone 
were it not for their scarcity ; yet if one class has to appear more 
than another, then the self, in a rich range of her lovely colours, is 
the one to make the weakness look most beautiful and attractive. 
But the self “ is the least advanced class.” How the least ad¬ 
vanced ? Is she the weaker vessel ? Is she the inferior creature ? 
Is she so little because she has not the “ edge,” which would be in¬ 
consistent with her distinctive character ? Are her properties so 
facile that anybody can raise a good self ? Truly nay to all this. 
Rather, here is the delightful deception of her beauty, in that it 
looks so simple and so easy of attainment, and is yet so hard. 
Herein is the charm of her advancement that you think you can win 
that homely calm-faced flower at your will; and, lo ! you cannot. 
As my friend, “ D., Deal,” says “ Whoever attempts to grow seed¬ 
lings is pretty sure to get a large proportion of seifs among them.” 
That is so, and here was the misconception of the old school florists 
that seifs came anyhow, to say nothing of the aimless wmnderings 
of such as put their trust in chance-saved seed. Plenty of seifs, 
but what seifs ? The most abject, marked, and painful failures. 
There is, thanks to “ self ” deception, no class of Auricula more diffi¬ 
cult to raise than a really first-rate self. Those who trust to the 
sporting of edged-class seeds are not even in the way of it. An 
edged flower does not seem to know what a good self ought to be. 
I never knew a self worth anything that owed a filial relationship 
with the “ bloated aristocracy (!)” of the “ edges.” 
I have taken perhaps more pains wnth the self than with any 
Auricula. I think the best Auriculas I have yet raised are seifs. 
yet they have not “come spontaneous,” but only from a pure and 
the best self parentage, and there was not much to work upon when 
I began. Now, the “ advance ” of the self has been from the 
notched petal to the fully rounded “rose leaf” one, and from the 
narrow paste of an even outline to the broad and circular, to 
petals of greater substance and breadth and smoothness, and far more 
richness of colour and texture. I think also that the self is proving 
worthy of another possible recognition of her advancement, that 
she should suffer from no mere class disability in competing for the 
proud position of the premier flower of an exhibition. A perfect 
self is a better Auricula than a less perfect green-edge. The edged 
one has more to do than the other ; but if it does not do it then the 
other that has done all it could is the higher flower. 
But this by the way. “ D., Deal,” considers that the self is cheap 
a’so, as being the most easily grown. Certainly the habit is often, 
but not always, the more robust, and the self will no more 
brook ill-usage than the edged flower will. She is like her 
brethren. To put, if I may, words of Shylock (jnutatis mutandisy 
to the lips of the self:—“lam a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? 
hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, 
passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, 
subject to the s-ame diseases, healed by the same means, warmed 
and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is ? If 
you prick us, do we not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? 
If you poison us, do we not die ? And if you wrong us, shall we 
not revenge ? ” 
May I say, also, that “ D., Deal,” is mistaken in supposing that 
the self Laura is a shaded flower. The Laura of the London 
twelves was the same Laura (the same plant) in the Northern sixes 
a week later at Manchester ; and it is vain to suppose that, had she 
been truly a shaded self, she could have escaped the strict eye of 
all the judges. Of the florist brotherhood, several of my most 
severe Northern friends saw Laura both at home and at the shows, 
and they all spoke to me of the pure beauty of the flower. It is 
simply impossible that a shaded self should pass undetected through 
this keen and varied scrutiny, and an exhibitor who ventured in 
the North with a shaded self would run grievous risk of making 
wreck of all his chances. There is only one body colour in Laura, 
and I can only think that in certain lights, the Lights (save the . 
mark !) the Lights o’ London Show, “ D., Deal,” may have caught 
a dismal ray through the flower from behind it, transmitted through 
the varying density of petal tissues, that may account for what he 
supposed was shady. But I look to-day on Laura faded, and she 
has died true to her pure colour, one of the highest virtues of the 
self. 
But even more than at the fault with Laura I do wonder that 
my friend apparently never lingered, with even so much as a 
butterfly touch, over the charm and power of the black self Ebony. 
I do feel fond and proud of her ; and at the Northern Show, where 
she appeared after all the wear and tear of London, Ebony was the 
best self I had, and was beloved of all who saw her. She is our first 
self in black yet obtained with all-round excellencies, with colour 
most happily shown off against mealed foliage, and with a golden 
tube and brilliant paste not excelled even by Heroine, in which they 
are properties so strong. I am sorry that the practised eye, taken 
in an illusion over Laura, should miss the lustrous beauty of dark 
laughing-eyed Ebony (it is only an innocent flower that can seem 
to smile in the colours of deep mourning). If I had a florist friend 
at my side he should write all this for me lest I should seem to 
boast, but indeed I do not mean to do so. 
On the subject of heat, I must mention another complete mis- 
impression of “ D., Deal.” He infers that all the crumpled and 
curled petals, all the coarse and over-sized blooms, were “ as if all 
the heat they had been subjected to had not been even enough to 
open them fully.” Now, as a matter of fact, heat, as “ D., Deal,” 
evidently understands it, is the very “ How not to do it after this 
fashion.” Such heat will not so much as properly open an Auricula 
—the last thing it will do is to give it size. The Auricula pip that 
has been heated is a very different thing from the blustering 
blossoms of which “ D., Deal’’ rightly complains. It is a small 
round thing, of little substance, colour, or duration—a bud that has 
dropped out into a flower which a good green pea or a threepenny- 
piece would utterly eclipse. It may even not go that little way, 
but remain much the bud it was until the throat gives way, and it is 
gone. I am nigh unto weariness in combatting this perhaps plausible 
but utterly incorrect assumption, that Auriculas which in a late 
season are shown wonderfully expanded and ready, or hopelessly 
reugh and over-grown, are obtained by forcing the plants by the 
same means into the opposite extremes. I am bold to say that no 
Auriculas that win a place at the great shows have been grown in 
heat as that term is generally, and I think by “ D., Deal, 
understood. 
As an illustration of what is true and safe on this vexed 
question may I repeat my own experience and practice ? The 
