1877. ] 
THE AURICULA.—CHAPTER XI. 
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The succulent foliage is very liable to snap, and therefore exposure to high 
winds would now do serious injury to it, and through it to the constitution of 
the plant. Neither the Auricula nor the Polyanthus can bear to have their 
leaves broken and twisted in the wind, wherefore this danger must be well 
guarded against in a month wherein it may blow equinoctial gales. 
Those who, like myself, grow Auriculas in the sweet country, and have 
them just now' in a house glazed with large clear glass, will in March begin 
to find the sun too powerful for the foliage. I do not like to see it much 
distressed by hot sun, though it will stiffen up again at night. I have there¬ 
fore a light shading ready to roll down over the glass, if necessary. 
Without shutting out the sunshine, it tempers it and breaks it, as the budding 
twigs do in the woods, as they weave their lacework of light shadows over the 
primroses below. If, however. Auriculas have perfect ventilation given them, 
they will bear uninjured an intensity of sunshine that would burn them if they 
were so shut up under it that no current of fresh air could pass over them. I 
know my friend, Mr. Simonite, of Sheffield, lets the sun of all the year beat upon 
his Auriculas under ventilation. But then, what a sorry lukewarm sun it is 
that lights up Sheffield! and what a durable and inexpensive shading material 
deposits itself upon Sheffield glass!—a foul precipitate of all the nuisances, seen 
and unseen, that are poured into the mysterious Sheffield air. 
Any treatment for March beyond what I have given, will consist in little acts 
of kindness to the plants, which a watchful interest in them will prompt and carry 
out. In a word, it may be called handling. The freeing of a truss entangled by 
its guard-leaves in the heart, the removal of an ugly pip, the brushing-away of 
an early aphis, the earthing-up to any new root striking out above the soil, the 
turning the plants round to have their growth on all sides equal, a watchful eye 
for things that might ruin bright hopes in a night, and a quick eye and relief for a 
plant beginning to go wrong by lagging behind—these little matters, and others 
of small detail that would be tedious to name, weigh much on the whole. High 
culture and finish are attained by constant and delicate touches, and not by 
rough and far-between spasmodic efforts. 
Seedlings, especially of the smaller sizes, should have close attention now. 
Top-dress the large ones like old plants, and let the soil come up to the base 
of the leaves. They root very vigorously from that part, and even through the 
foliage itself. In all seedlings under blooming size, the object is to get them to 
root strongly, for they will never go along till this is attained. A pot of neg¬ 
lected Auricula seedlings will be found to be a very melancholy and slow concern. 
Where seed was sown as soon as ripe, two distinct crops of seedlings will be 
now obtained. Those that appeared in autumn and were pricked out, are now 
nice little plants with quite a circle of leaves. Some of these will be strong 
enough to send up a pip in September. When their soil is at all crusted or 
mossy, they should be pricked out afresh. In the seed-pots, gather off all which 
have a well developed seed-leaf, and prick them out. They arc so small to handle 5 
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