60 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 24, 188’. 
the green edges, so often wished for. Heroine is the best addition 
we have yet had, and a peer to that would be something to be 
proud of. Black Bess was good enough, the plant being small, 
to give hope that it will deserve esteem. Of the older sorts the 
majority quite surprised and somewhat puzzled me. The only 
explanation I could think of was that being generally somewhat 
more advanced they were more susceptible to frost than the others. 
I never had so great a proportion of seifs in my collection nor so 
few good blooms. This class, too, was the weak one in Edinburgh, 
so that others as well may have been caught napping. Sim’s 
Eliza produced a fine symmetrical truss, and should not be slighted 
although the paste is not quite circular. Spalding’s Bessie Bell is 
generally a flower that tells well, and Downing’s Catherine is not 
nearly so well known as it deserves. Blackbird and Pizarro are 
still among the best, the weak stalk of the former being its fault. 
Ellen Lancaster has much too narrow a paste. The only good 
feature of Metropolitan and Bradshaw’s Tidy is their colour, the 
best I know of that complexion being Charles J. Perry and 
Campbell’s Onward. I have over and over again had the latter 
second to none. Sapphire is too thin in texture, but the cheerful 
tint speaks for its retention. Nonsuch and Lowe’s Mazzini, the 
latter a very good and pleasing flower but not very constant, I will 
not discard till their places can be taken by more meritorious 
varieties, nor will I yet bid farewell to Miss Sturrock. 
It will be observed that in these discursive remarks compara¬ 
tively few of the newest flowers are mentioned. It would be 
interesting to have the unbiassed opinion of growers who have 
made the acquaintance of these claimants for favour. Tastes 
differ, and everyone is perfectly entitled to indulge his own. I 
have seen a collection somewhat like my own in extent containing 
very few of the older sorts, at least four-fifths being seedlings 
named and unnamed. These undoubtedly gave to their raiser more 
satisfaction than the varieties he had discarded would do. That 
fact did not in the least affect my estimate of them, and in my 
judgment he erred. We are all liable to see merits in our own 
productions imperceptible to others ; and so descriptions by the 
raiser are often not quite trustworthy, unintentionally so doubtless ; 
and as the Auricula often deteriorates after its first bright promise 
the guarantee of “ first-class certificate ” and “ premier flower” may 
in a few years be worthless. But candidly I think that the 
declension in the case of many of these new sorts must have been 
rapid indeed to have left them the inferior things they are. I have, 
or have had, upwards of a dozen of them. F. D. Horner, Heroine, 
Black Bess, and Sapphire are the only sorts I consider worth 
having. My opinions were evidently formed in another school, 
and may be unsound. Smarting under k ; m disappointments, 
dearly paid for too, and reading of the older varieties being now 
“echoes” and “shadows” and “memories,” there is suggested the 
preference of a soft pleasing echo to a harsh strident noise ; or the 
idea of a disordered eye mistaking for cloud effect a dark patch of 
sturdy fir on the breast of one of our Bens ; or there sounds in 
memory’s ear the wail of the Coronach in “ Rob Roy ” while the 
bold outlaw lamented is yet alive to tread again his native heath. 
Flimsy, gaudy, hard-featured, vulgarly-assertive—these are some 
of the traits disclosed to me in my new additions. Not the least 
objectionable are some that I see most persistently recommended. 
By themselves they are a unique and motley crew, unblushingly 
displaying flagrant violations of all that an Auricula ought to be.— 
A Northern Amateur. 
LEAVES AND LEAF MOULD. 
Leaves vary in texture and in value. Oak and Beech are of 
greater firmness or harder than Chestnut, and these are harder than 
Horse Chestnut; but for all practical purposes the Oak, Beech, and 
Spanish Chestnut may be taken as the first m order of value for 
protection, use as fermenting material, and for making into leaf 
mould. There is so little “durance ” in Lime, Sycamore, and Elm, 
with Hornbeam, &c., as to render them very much less valuable in 
all respects, consequently they should be kept, as far as practicable, 
distinct from the others, using them immediately, or where nothing 
very prolonged is required. All should, as far as practicable, be 
collected dry ; in fact those not required for immediate use, or to 
act as protection, must be collected dry, and they should be stacked 
in some sheltered place with a dry site, so as to be available at any 
time for use without any depreciation of value for protection, 
heating, or manure. If stacked more or less wet fermentation 
will take place, and the more goes out by that means the less 
remains of value. Some, with a view to the early conversion of 
the leaves into leaf mould, throw them together wet, or if dry, 
moisten, and turn frequently, by which process the leaves are 
reduced more quickly into mould suitable for potting purposes. 
That is one way of preparing leaf mould, but it i3 not Nature’s 
plan. All the heat and steam is so much energy taken from the 
mass—nutrition wasted. Such is no better than the leaf mould 
resulting of fermenting beds, but there is the difference that the 
heat has been utilised for forwarding or producing some crop, 
whilst in the other it uselessly vanished. We all know that spent 
Mushroom bed manure is valuable as manure, and that of exhausted 
hotbeds has manurial properties, but the difference between a 
2-inch surfacing of unheated or fresh horse droppings and a similar 
one of spent Mushroom-bed manure is very pronounced. 
Protection. —We clear leaves away for tidiness, and we expose 
the surface to the cold of winter and drought of summer. We 
are very particular about surface roots for Vines and fruit trees ; 
indeed when success in crop is sought we strive after Nature. 
What are surface dressings and mulchings but imitations of 
Nature’s fallen leaves and herbage ? Surface roots we must have ; in 
fact, they mark the difference between success and failure. We 
know that the frost will penetrate to a depth of G to 7 inches, and 
that if the frost be kept out of the soil the part above ground is 
less susceptible to injury by cold; and we also know that trees 
mulched or protected are not so influenced by atmospheric fluctu¬ 
ations as those having the soil exposed. We know, further, that 
mulched plants have roots at the surface, adventitious ones even 
pushing in the mulching material during the resting period; but 
in the bare exposed soil roots are sought for in vain anywhere near 
the surface. This is more frequently the case with Vines and 
other tender fiuits which are given rich material to grow in. The 
roots are hardy or tender in proportion to the richness or poorness 
of the medium, and their capability of surviving cold is in relative 
proportion. In a poor siliceous soil, or with a strong resisting 
medium, we may find the roots resist frost and be near the surface, 
whilst in a rich soil we may dig a spit deep without finding a fibre. 
Various materials have been, and still are, employed. I have used 
many, and have come to the conclusion that leaves excel all. A 
covering G inches thick is proof against any frost experienced in 
this country, and a little litter placed over them will prevent 
any untidiness. Where early forcing is practised a greater depth 
of leaves may be used with advantage, and where the leaves are only 
intended to act as a protecting substance, a 4-inch thickness will 
meet all requirements, which may remain on permanently, for 
leaves lie light. Atmospheric action is not impeded, as is the case 
with manure that settles into a soapy mass and forms a surface 
impervious to air and rain, and whilst the roots are attracted to 
and kept active at the surface of the border, and in the leaf soil 
itself, those where the manure is employed positively refuse to work 
in the soapy mass, and descend instead of rising. There is, of 
course, a difference in manure, some being lumpy, or is open so 
that air enters freely, but I make no question that a mulching of 
leaves of equal thickness, in comparison with manure of any kind, 
will have the advantage. In 1887 I covered one part of an outside 
Vine border with leaves and an equal part with stable manure. 
The b wder in both cases could safely be pointed over with a fork 
its full length without disturbing the roots to any great extent, but 
in making all “ snug ” for the winter, after dressing with quick¬ 
lime, for the border is rich—-full of humus, bones, and old mortar 
rubbish—which last, good as it is mechanically, and for acting as 
base, cannot keep pace with the rate at which food is manufactured 
or sought, I found we could point the lime in as deeply as before 
wheie the manure mulching obtained, but it was impracticable to 
do anything to that where the leaves were employed as the mulch¬ 
ing and the surface of the border w r as full of roots, so I was content 
to merely remove the loose surface, scatter the lime on the surface 
and scratch it in. Although the border is one, the Vines are in two 
compartments, and singularly those where the leaves were used on 
the border were much the weakest; indeed not half the strength as 
regai ds wood of those in the manured part, which was due to one 
being old and exhausted, and the other young and uudercropped, 
but now the wood of the old Vines is quite equal to the young, the 
canes varying in thickness from the thumb to the little finger. 
Then I tried leaves as mulching for an inside border in another 
vinery, there being nine Vines confined to it, and an equal number 
in an outside border mulched with stable manure. We took off the 
