886 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
r ITay 8, 1690. 
Cladisporium, and this was followed by a white-winged aphis, though I 
cannot say the latter did much harm. Both ultimately, but not until 
the end of the season, spread to the healthy plants that were dry and 
warm throughout, but, strange to say, made so little progress as to do 
them no harm. Further, I had Ferns, some of the hardier Orchids, &c., 
in the moist end, and did not mind giving air so frequently. This had 
an injurious effect on the west-end Tomatoes too, and of the limited 
number produced neither in size, number, or quality could they compare 
with those grown at the other end that were more exposed to sunshine, 
a freer current of air and drier air, and that had water less frequently. 
Outdoors, from plants grown in different positions, I arrived at much 
the same conclusion, and which may be summarised—1, A tolerably dry 
warm soil, with a mixture of lime rubbish and brick dust, sand, &c., 
through the loam and leaf mould. 2, No fresh or very rich manure, 
and if the soil is fairly good better depend on an artificial dressing after 
the fruits are set. 3, The freest current of warm air and the fullest 
available sunshine, and no shading by any means. 4, Proper thinning 
of the unnecessary side shoots and foliage, so as to expose the fruiting 
stems to full sunshine. 6, As this is a good time for planting water 
very slightly, plant in good warm soil that had been exposed to the sun, 
and if water must be used now and then let it be warm or heated in 
the sun. Precaution is better than cure ; thus disappointment and 
subsequent vexation is avoided.—W. J. Murphy, Clonmel. 
NOTES ON AURICULAS AND SHOWS. 
It is not an easy matter to criticise a show of florists’ flowers, how¬ 
ever well one may know them, and this is more especially the case with 
a flower of such a peculiar character as the Auricula, for I am afraid it 
must be said, like olives or oysters, it is an acquired taste. “ Oh ! yes, 
I have no doubt very beautiful, but very prim and stiff ; I really 
cannot work myself up to admire these flowers,” is what one is often 
doomed to hear, and the amused wonder with which one of the ordinary 
frequenters of shows will stand by and listen to the enraptured exclama¬ 
tions on some “general favourite” is very delightfuf. Thus when I 
was with an excellent judge and grower of Auriculas comparing two 
green edges the other day, a bystander said, “ Well, it must require 
a connoisseur to see any difference between them.” They were very 
distinct, and we were not examining them for that purpose, hence 
many a lover of flowers will consider all criticism on the subject 
useless. Then there is the lover of herbaceous plants, who has a sneer¬ 
ing contempt for anything that is the subject of laws and rules. There 
are species of Auriculas and Primulas, and he so revels in these that he 
very much wonders why people should trouble themselves about what is 
a violation of Nature, and from the pinnacle of his festhetic majesty looks 
down on the florist with simple wonder and amazement. And then last 
and worst of all there are the florists themselves—good genial fellows 
most of them, but terribly afflicted with corns, and by no means soft 
ones. Now, if in your criticisms you deem it necessary to find fault you 
may expect such a look and growl as I should myse’f indulge in if 
anyone trod on my toes. Now, if anyone in any of these three classes 
find fault with what I have to say about the Auricula Show I give fair 
warning it will pass by me as the idle wind, which I respect not. I 
have no object to serve but the welfare of a flower I have loved from my 
boyhood, and which now that I have passed man’s limit has still many 
charms for me, and brings up pleasant mementoes of the days long 
long ago. 
Not that I have much adverse criticism to make on the National 
Exhibition, which in its extent somewhat surprised me. To me one of the 
most satisfactory features of the Show was that it was so much more a 
southern one than it used to be. The northern growers, with the excep¬ 
tion of Mr. Horner, 'were not there. Messrs. Ben Simonite, Bolton, Potts, 
Penson, Wilson, and others, whose flowers used at one time to fill the 
tables, were absent. I suppose in some cases the lateness of the season 
kept them back, for I am glad to find that growers are coming back to 
the notion that forcing Auriculas into bloom does not pay. Be this as 
it rnay, it was a real pleasure to find that southern growers were 
coming on, and that too in very dashing style. I remember in former 
years how I used to regard Reading as the home of one of our greatest 
florists, one who helped so much to raise the Show Pelargonium to 
the pitch of excellence it has attained, and now the same town seems 
as if it would make a name for itself amongst Auricula growers. A few 
years ago Mr. Henwood was unknown by name, now he ran the great 
Auricula champion Mr. Horner so close that it was a very difficult to 
matter to decide, while in the class for six Auriculas he took the first 
place. Now all this is as it should be, although I once despaired of 
ever seeing it accomplished. I do not think one southerner exhibits in 
the northern section, and therefore it is only right that the lion’s share 
in the southern show should fall to the southern growers. 
I do not think that the quality of the flowers was at all up to the 
standard of excellence we have sometinies seen, nor do I see how it 
could be otherwise. It was a late season, and hence such flowers as 
Heorge Lightbody, Lancashire Hero, and Prince of Greens, which are 
long in opening, were but scantily represented. Then there was that 
spell of cold weather in the latter end of March and beginning of 
April, which tended very much to chill the bloom, and consequently 
there was a large number of crumpled edges, and what someone has 
called distressed blooms. Nor were the trusses so large as in many 
seasons. Of this latter I do not complain, for 1 believe that a truss of 
seven pips of an edged flower is the most symmetrical one can have, 
but where a truss bears many there is the greater facility for cutting 
out bad ones and leaving perfect pips; and although I do not hold with 
the practice of cutting all out to get three perfect ones, still one may 
err on the other side. Some varieties give larger trusses than others, 
but it is to me no recommendation to a truss that it contains ten, eleven, 
or twelve pips. Another point, I noticed much less drawn foliage 
than used to be the case. This most probably arises from the disuse of 
heat, which has a tendency to draw up both foliage and flower stem. 
As far as my judgment went Mr. Hen wood’s plants were the most com¬ 
pact and in every respect the most orthodox in the E.xhibition ; his 
plants reminded me of what Mr. Penson’s used to be in the old South 
Kensington days. 
The interest, of course, is mainly with the newer, although to a 
certain extent this is of a provoking character. You see a very fine 
new Begonia, or Pelargonium, or Chrysanthemum ; you make a note of 
it, and say to yourself “I mean to have that,” and in a reasonable course 
of time you do get it. But you see a new Auricula, you admire it; you 
say to yourself, “ I should like to have that,” but you may have to wait tili 
your hair turns grey before you do. Mr. Horner has been raising seed¬ 
lings for years, has gained prizes for them, has caused the mouths of 
fanciers to water, but oh ! how few of them have found their way into 
commerce, not, I must suppose, from any unwillingness on his part, but 
on theirs. Some kinds will remain year after year without throwing ao 
offset, and although cutting off the heads has been advised, I fancy but 
few try it. 
Of the flowers which are to be had the best were Heroine, a beautiful 
self, possessing all the requisites of a good flower, and perhaps eclipsed 
by the daughter Mrs. Potts, raised by Mr. Sam Barlow from seed sent 
him by Mr. Horner. The Rev. F. D. Horner (Simonite) is a fine greerr 
edge, and it must be so, as it took the premier prize, beating a good plant 
of Leigh’s Colonel Taylor and Traill’s Prince of Greens. It has a defect 
(what Auricula has not ?) in a certain thinness of paste through which 
the body colour sometimes shows. This is conspicuous in Litton’s 
Imperator, from whence this flower (although I only write from sur¬ 
mise) would appear to have come. It is no small credit to the intelli¬ 
gence of my late excellent friend, Mr. Woodhead, whose loss to floricul¬ 
ture was, I am sure, a great one, that four of his flowers should have 
appeared in the winning stands. Thus Mr. Horner, in his first prize 
stand of twelve, had Rachel (a grey edge), while Mr. Henwood had in 
his second prize lot George Rudd, Rachel, and Black Bess, while Mrs. 
Dodwell was also shown. I am sure it will be a pleasure to Miss Wood- 
hea 1 to find her brother’s flowers occupying so honourable a positions 
Amongst other flowers I liked Monarch, green edge, although it had a. 
little tendency to coarseness. Favourite and Iris, both flowers of the- 
Sapphire type of colour, were very promising. Melanie, a dark self of 
good character ; Irreproachable, a fine flower, although the paste is^ 
somewhat faulty ; Miranda, a flower which somewhat reminds one of 
Conservative ; Magpie, a fine white edge, with deep black body colour,. 
I regard as the best edged flowers that Mr. Horner has raised. Mr. 
Horner had a’so a yellow self, which all the esthetics called precious,, 
but which I cannot say I regard with any favour. Desdemona, a white- 
edged flower, was also good. 
I am sorry to say that I have nothing to add about the Alpines. T 
have tried to like them, have again grown a few, but I am sorry to say 
that they can never, to my mind, be named in the same breath with 
the show flowers. 
I hope that the success which has attended the attempt to populariss 
this flower, a success of which I long despaired, will induce others to 
imitate our friends at Reading. If anyone had said when, a few years- 
ago, Mr. Henwood began to exhibit that he would beat the oldest and 
most experienced exhibitors people would have shaken their heads. 
But he has done it, and. as I have already said, ran him very close in the 
large class of twelve plants. What he has done others may do, and thus- 
a still greater popularity be gained by this flower; and for the encourage¬ 
ment of such let me say I can look back on nearly sixty years of 
affection for this flower ; that it has been, like all things, a source of 
mingled pleasure and trouble ; that I still retain the old love, which' 
not the Rose or the Gladiolus, or any other flower, can supplant.— 
D., Deal. 
SPRING FLOWERS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
( Continued from page 339 .) 
The Bulb Farms op Holland. 
No one who visits Haarlem, on whatever mission bent, passes the- 
bulb farms by without at least a cursory inspection, and the majority of 
those who travel thither from England do so for the express purpose of 
seeing the flowers. Many bulb dealers go over annually to inspect the- 
stocks, others to try and pick up bargains (which often turn out bad- 
ones) at the bulb auctions, and an occasional amateur finds his way 
across, as much from curiosity to ascertain whether the farms are really 
something “ out of the way ” as anything else. In the comments which 
I purpose making I do not propose to indulge in the stereotyped descrip¬ 
tive matter and nothing more, but rather to single out a few special 
points of interest which may prove not less acceptable to the readers- 
of the Jouimal of IlortieulUire. 
Haarlem, the home of the bulb, is a name that is written large in the- 
pages of history. For many years the brave forefathers of the Hyacinth- 
growers of to-day had a hard struggle against foreign invaders from 
various lands. The sword was as familiar to them as the pruning hook,, 
and they fought for home and freedom as sturdily as they had fought t» 
