412 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER . 
[ May 23, 1889. 
Thus 20 gallons of wash are made for Is. The hellebore costs 
here 8d. per lb. It is ground very fine like pepper, and passes 
through the rose of a syringe. Care should be taken to strain the 
water through sacking. For aphides alone probably more water 
might be added. Some Apple trees which were done about ten 
days ago, just as the bloom was about to open, and which were the 
worst I had, look first-rate now. Some of the blossoms of course 
were eaten, but as one in each bunch is more than sufficient 
if it set, plenty were left, enough for an abundant crop ; in fact, 
the few injured blossoms would not be noticed by a casual 
observer. Not every caterpillar is killed, but from most of the 
bunches where they had been they have disappeared, and those few 
that are left look yellow and sickly, and do not seem to enjoy 
themselves. No doubt the earlier the trees are done the better, 
before there is much foliage on them. Last year some trees 
were washed under a bright sun when in full bloom, but sus¬ 
tained no injury, and bore an abundant crop. In places where 
Apple trees were eaten bare with caterpillars last year I hear 
there is scarcely any bloom this year, but again a heavy plague of 
caterpillars.” 
We are obliged to Mr. Kruse for the record of his experience 
The birds do not appear to have been his friends but his enemes. 
With a similar mixture to that advised we have cleared caterpillars 
from the few Apple trees and Gooseberry bushes to which it was 
applied, but the labour involved in applying the solution in a 
thorough manner to thousands of trees must of necessity add to 
the cost of fruit culture. Admitting that, however, those who 
secure good crops of fruit will have the advantage over those who 
have none, and we trust our correspondent will be rewarded for 
his enterprise and endeavour in extirpating the horde of destructive 
caterpillars from his trees. We shall be glad to hear more on the 
subject of the fruit outlook in different parts of the country. 
AURICULAS. 
NOTE3 ON NOTES. 
I think my friend “ D., Deal,” is, on the whole, despondent 
over the happily increasing efforts to improve the Auricula ; and I 
have understood him to maintain that our most carefully crossed 
seed has not surpassed the best results of seed self-fertilised. It 
would be interesting to know if there is any evidence that the 
best of the^ old grey edges which he adduced — “ Hero ” and 
“ Lightbody’—were chance seedlings. I have an impression that 
" D., Deal,” thinks so, and that another writer, “ J. M.,” of Dundee, 
believes they were not. In absence of proof either way, and from 
my recollections of the raisers, Lancashire and Headly, I should 
give the benefit of the doubt to careful crossing. 
I believe the edged classes will just as surely be improved as 
the seifs have been, but, having more “ P’s and Q’s ” to mind, the 
edges may prove the less amenable, though it is no easy work or 
frequent thing to raise a first-rate self. The very best of the old 
flowers have their weak points—even to uncertainty of coming in 
good character which is a mild form of that instability which 
“ D., Deal,' dreads for every new seedling. Without the least 
doubt there is such a thing, but it need hardly be suspected of a 
flower till it shows the failing. 
My friend puts into a sort of quarantine of two or three years 
at least, all new flowers “ till they are established,” not infected 
with instability ; and so in his sight, all lie under a distrust which not 
all will justify. But in an estimate of progress made, it is a serious 
defalcation to leave out the last two or three years, be they rich or 
poor. We want the Auricula news down to the “ latest telegrams,” 
while none the less aware that fuller intelligence may modify 
the earlier “ winged words.” Otherwise, methinks, I should be 
reminded of our quaint humourist at our local news-shop. “ The 
Times,'' said a casual inquirer. “Oh! we ain’t got no Timeses ! 
We re behind the times here ! ” And to his disgust she offered 
him instead a “ well established ” weekly ! Prithee, good friend of 
Deal, treat us not thusly! 
• u ? ee in the Auricula to forbid the hope of advancing 
with it, as other florist flowers have advanced. As the best have 
sprung from inferior parents, so will superior offspring arise from 
them ; while every seedling, with some bright point of its own, 
will help as a new parent. No one could wish to drive the few 
really good old Auriculas out of the field, but we do sorely need 
others which they will find are hard to beat, and some which will 
decidedly beat them. Ten years have gone, and my friend finds 
them still unconquered. But this, already, does not apply to the 
seifs, nor, I believe, to the green and white edges. The greys 
contain two old flowers I would always grow, and I cannot say- 
more, if as much, for the others, if we had better. 
On the fate of Talisman and Ajax, “D., Deal,” lays perhaps a 
little too much stress, and goes into deeper mourning for them than. 
Mr. Simonite and I do. Both were raised in very early days of 
what are called the newer seedlings; Ajax in the seventies, and I 
think Talisman too. Talisman in his prime was an improvement 
on the Admiral Napier and Lord Palmerston type of green edges, of 
which we also hear little now,and has failed in constitu ion. the plants 
refusing to grow into size, just as did Traill’s George Lightbody 
(green) and Lightbody’s Miss Lightbody (white). Significant'y 
enough, in the cise of Ajax, I never propagited it for g^neial cir¬ 
culation, and all the plants I had of it gradually di-appeared among 
friends who took a fancy to try it. It was usually too heavy in the 
body colour, with petals pointed on the weaker pips, but came- 
sometimes nice on maiden plants. 
I fear “ D., Deal,” cannot teach us anything for which we are 
not prepared on the instability of seedlings, for we are with them 
in an intimacy he has never cared to acquire. But while he seems 
t ) tremble lest every fair new face should prove fickle and fa’se, it- 
is not a trouble which it is worth while to go hdf way ta me=t, and 
it shows signs, I think, of occurring less often, as successive seed¬ 
lings from selected seedlings are genealogically a further remove- 
from old uncertainties. 
Still, I think instability may be one of the last irregularities to- 
go, for it is something deeper and more subtle than a fault. It- 
is an innate power of change that from impenetiable motive may 
spring into action ; but, unlike a fault, it has a bright as well as 
shady side. If the fair do sometimes play us false, so do a’so the 
at first uncomely, reward us for forbearance. Perhaps if “ D. r 
Deal,” had seen the maiden bloom of the white edge, John Simonite, 
he would have tossed it over the hedge, for it was all but a self, 
with slight rim of silver. And perhaps had he raised the two 
seedling green edges of the last Southern Show he would have 
stamped on them for being “ bloated aristocrats.” Yet both these- 
have quite moderately sized pips on a full truss. With good 
properties in tube, paste, and petal form, it is not safe to hastily 
discard a maiden seedling for lack of balance in body and edge, and 
for over-size. There comes-in the doctrine of instability, and they 
may be good flowers in disguise, just as a first bloom of great 
brilliancy may be only the promise never to be kept. So here are- 
two sides, even to instability. 
As to the two “ blue ” seifs, Perry and Sapphire, being all but. 
indistinguishable, I should not have thought it possible for anyone 
with half a florist’s eye to confound the two. I could the more 
readily imagine that in the test plants arranged by my friend, “ D. r 
Deal,” the labels were wrong, or that, confessedly seeing “ little, if 
any difference,” he had by mischance got two Perrys or two. 
Sapphires, and asked for the difference. Let me note a point or 
two. Perry has a narrow and circular paste ; Sapphire’s paste iff 
not narrow, and not circular, but wavy in outline. Perry has rose¬ 
leaved petals ; Sapphire’s are round too, but they do not lie flat 
like Perry’s, but are generally a little wavy on the edge. The 
contour, expression, and carriage of the pips are different also, and 
I should know the pips without the help of the plant to go by. 
Coming to the habit of the foliage, which is inseparable from 
the identity of the Auricula, Sapphire’s leaves are densely and 
smoothly mealed, and Perry’s are not. Sapphire’s foliage is much 
and handsomely serrated. Perry’s is broadly pear-shaped and 
comparatively smooth-edged. Sapphire, I think, is the clearer 
“ blue,” and is not even a seedling by either side, of Chas. Perry, 
but a cross between Formosa and Meteor Flag. If such differences, 
none of them too slight to attract a florist’s notice, do not suffice to 
distinguish two seifs of the same type of colour, why, then, 
“ write me down that I am an Ass !” 
Just a word about poor “Ebony.” I cannot say that I was 
“ hurt,” though I did wonder that my friend, “ D., Deal,” should 
miss the dark flower in the very centre of its group, for he said 
{.Journal of Horticulture, May 17th, 1888) “Honestly, I did not see 
the flower.” But alas ! {Journal of Horticulture, May 2nd, 1889), 
“ D., Deal,” again says of Ebony, “ It was very hard to see last year, 
and I thought it rough, and this year confirms my opinion.” (!) 
Now Ebony last year was not rough, but young, with few pips 
fully “ down,” and was in the Northern Show (same plant! after¬ 
wards, with the young pips open ; and that she might receive aa 
little check as possible I had brought her in a glass case and in her 
pot, to London. 
Well, let us smile together, “ D., Deal,” and I, and say with 
the man who read the dictionary for a story book, “ Deal o’ infor¬ 
mation, but the narrative seems a bit broken ! ” Let us smile 
together, and admit that curious mistakes will occur in the best- 
regulated criticisms—as, by the way, in the assignment of “ pale ” 
tube to Melanie, whose tube dies an orange gold ; and to Ebony, whose 
is a clear full lemon gold ; or the lack of a “darker” one to make 
