Jane 9, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
459 
' r °oted they should be taken off, and planted round the edge of a 
pot, when they will speedily increase in size. 
Mr. Bolton is, as I have said, engaged in raising seedlings, and a 
considerable number of these were planted out in a bed in the 
garden. They are planted there as soon as they are fit to handle, 
and as they increase in size, if they show any good properties, are 
liftid up and potted. In the greenhouse were to be seen some 
pans where the seedlings were coming up very thickly, but his 
experience, as well as Mr. Horner’s, is the same as that which one 
finds in other flowers, that those which come up quickly are rarely 
ever worth anything. I remember years ago Margottin at Bourg 
la Reine telling me that he had never found that the Rose seed¬ 
lings which came up the first year produced anything worth 
retaining. 
With regard to giving heat to Auriculas to bring them on in time 
for exhibition, he looked upon it as in itself an injurious thing. A 
good deal of the roughness of many exhibits he attributes to this, 
and he believes no Auricula grower would apply it if he could help 
it. He is himself preparing to build a house for flowering plants, 
as, like other growers, he finds it so much preferable to frames, 
where you can walk in and have the plants at the level of your eye. 
It will thus be seen that we ranged in our conversation over most 
of the subjects connected with Auricula culture. Mr. Bolton is 
one of those who believe that there arc no secrets in Auricula 
growing, and that growers can best promote its interests by com¬ 
municating their ideas to one another.—D., Deal. 
In reply to inquiries by “ M,,” I would; as to the woolly aphi 8 
counsel him not to be so afraid of it as to risk the health of the 
plants in attempts to utterly destroy it. It is small gain and comfort 
to sLay the enemy afc the cost of more ruin than he works. I have 
known great harm done thus by the owner himself, and do not 
myself consider that the woolly aphis, so long as it is confined to 
the underground stem and roots, does any harm to the plants. The 
difficulty, however, of tolerating him in a harmless inch is to prevent 
him taking the ell of excess ; and I am sure that when the insect 
is allowed to gather round the collar of the plant so as to surround 
the new fibres, starting from that most vital part,, the young roots 
are checked by the waterproof offcast wool with which this aphis 
surrounds its abiding place. When the roots are well away under¬ 
ground they do not seem to mind it. 
T always, at repotting time, find some woolly aphis among my 
plants, and rid them of it at every shift as far as I can, by cleaning 
all pots, using fresh drainage materials, and washing the plants in a 
compound of rain water, softsoap, and tobacco-paper juice. I use 
no stronger insecticide, and this, as I use it, looks something like 
very weak tea with very “blue” milk in it. I always remove 
'woolly aphis whenever I see it above ground on the neck of the 
plants, making a clearance with a small stiff-haired paint brush 
dipped in the above delicious beverage. At the same time I examine 
the ball of earth, and generally find it worth while to remove in 
like manner the colony of aphis that may be found between the 
pot side and the compost. A war of extermination is fierce and 
tedious, and is very likely to harass the plants, while any slight 
chance may reintroduce the newly extinguished invader. 
Plants in light open composts, in which they are allowed to 
become dry at any time, are in the most favourable condition for 
woolly aphis. It knows the sanitary value of a well-aired bed and 
thoroughly well-drained premises, and will always be found most 
abundantly close to the side of the pots and among the open crocks 
at the bottom. The plant which “ M.” has for Smith’s Ne plus 
Ultra is not true if it is anything like Simonite’s Frank. There 
are two Ne plus Ultras, Smith’s and Fletcher’s, neither of which, 
however, need go much further in these days of once unthought-of 
progress with the Auricula. Smith's flower is a white-edge with 
chocolate ground colour, and abundant fully mealed foliage—a large 
round-looking squat plant, given by the fault, not a small one, to 
which Acme and George Lightbody, especially Acme, are addicted, 
of not throwing the truss boldly enough above the foliage, and so 
looking dumpy. 
Frank Simonite first bloomed as a white edge, and is so classed, 
but is often now seen as a silvery grey. Its body colour of bluish 
velvet could not be confused with Smith’s Ne Plus Ultra, and the 
foliage is half mealed and handsomely serrated. 
The other Ne Plus Ultra is a plant of erect habit, leaves large, 
broad, and thick, with a flower of very ultra size—much too large 
to be refined, petal too pointed, and the body colour given to 
running into shades of maroon. 
A descriptive list of the best varieties, at least of those that are 
as yet in commerce, would be very useful and interesting to be¬ 
ginners, and if the plants were in bloom before me I would gladly 
furnish descriptive notes ; but it would be rather like painting a pic¬ 
ture from general impressions of the original ; and well as one may I 
know Auriculas by sight, and carry their beauties in memory from 
year to year, it will be found not easy to note down accurately 
every point of each in the absence of the living flower. We should 
be making some candlelight mistakes, and descriptions should be 
close and true, fresh from the eye to the pen, to be of use as a 
delicate test of identity. 
Even then so difficult is the edged Auricula to paint in words 
that the late Rev. George Jeans, whose descriptions twenty-five 
years ago are so vivid and concise, admitted that friends growing 
the same flowers in different localities did not agree with some par¬ 
ticulars of his descriptions, nor he, again, with theirs. Mr. Jeans’ 
notes lie entombed in the late “Gossip of the Garden,” and as I 
have the volumes I will gladly lend them to the Journal for repro¬ 
duction if desirable. With regard to “ M. S.’s ” suggestion of a 
manual on the florist Auricula, I live in the hope of gathering to¬ 
gether what I have strewed by the way on the culture of this 
flower.—F. D. Horner, Burton-in Lonsdale. 
For the information of your correspondent, “ M.,” I think I may 
venture to state that the Rev. F. D. Horner will shortly commence a 
work on the Auricula which I doubt not from his great experience and 
intense love of the flower will prove a very mine of information and 
instruction to us amateurs who can learn very little of practical value 
from the old writers on this most fascinating flower. 
Frank Simonite and Ne Plus Ultra are not much alike ; the former 
has a violet purple body colour similar to Col. Champneys ; in the latter 
the b. c. is chocolate, and dies off brown. 
I fear “ M.’s ” George Lightbody has not bloomed in its best form this 
season, or he would hardly have questioned its superiority overall others 
in commerce (and in private hands, too, I believe). It has been very 
fine with me this year. I have had splendid blooms on several of the 
leading varieties (the best I have ever seen, but ten days too late for 
South Kensington), but none of them possessed the exquisite and subtle 
beauty of Richard Headley’s matchless seedling. It is true it sometimes 
blooms with a very narrow body colour, but I am inclined to believe 
that that is the fault of the grower. 1 would venture to suggest to 
“ M.” that he should allow his plants to have an abundance Of sun and 
air until the pips are about to open, excluding frost from the middle of 
March if possible, and never let the plants get dry at the roots. Under 
such treatment I shall be much surprised if “ M.” does not get a good 
bloom, and agree with the great majority of growers in their estimate of 
this splendid Auricula. 
I have had no end of woolly aphis among my plants for years past, 
but I cannot say that it injures them.—T. Pipe, Southern Hill, 
Reading. 
GAS LIME AS A FERTILISER AND 
INSECTICIDE. 
“ Gas lime,” states Johnson’s “Cottage Gardener’s Dictionary,” 
“ is a hydro-sulphuret of lime with a little ammonia.” Hydro- 
sulphuret of lime is highly injurious to plants ; ammonia is a 
valuable source of plant food. Gas lime, therefore, is at once 
inimical and beneficial, paradoxical as it appears. In addition to 
many sulphides and ammonia, gas lime contains a compound of 
sulphur and cyanogen, which, though very deadly to plants, is 
singularly destructive of fungoid and insect pests infesting plants 
and which harbour in the soil. We have consequently two distinct 
properties combined in gas lime—viz., manurial, and anti-fungoid 
and insecticidal. We may glance at these separately. 
Manuriai. Properties. —The ammonia in gas lime no doubt 
prompted its application to land as a fertiliser, and its dire 
effects on the crops gave countenance to its being classed by 
many, if not most, cultivators, as (it is stated in the “ Gardener’s 
Assistant ”) “a manure which it is safer to dispense with than to 
use, at least in the garden.” Although this is the prevailing 
opinion, the objection to the use of gas lime being very decided 
(and the grounds are not chimerical but experimental) it contains, 
nevertheless, useful properties. In its fresh state it contains most 
ammonia, and is potent as a fertiliser, but in that state it is fatal to 
growing crops. It also retains >ts deleterious properties so long 
after it is buried in the soil as to prejudice crops that follow some 
time after its application; indeed, the effects of gas lime are so 
pronounced, that few cultivators will have anything to do with it. 
This view of gas lime may be due to its injudicious application, 
or the prejudice resulting from insufficient experiment. 
Gas lime being fatal in its fresh state to growing crops and on 
bare ground prejudices it for some time after we expose it to the 
atmosphere. It— i.e., the hydro-sulphuret—then becomes simple 
sulphate of lime or gypsum, which may, or may not, be free from 
injurious compounds. In that state it is useful in supplying sulphur 
as well as sulphate of lime to plants, if not ammonia, by converting 
the carbonate of ammonia into the sulphate, and so preventing the 
former escaping from the soil. That, however, is not admitted by 
some, and we may, therefore, consider atnel orated gas lime as 
useful to soils deficient of carbonate of lime. Whatever be the 
