SEPTEMBER. 
269 
shoots pinched off as far back as they are soft and green; diminish 
water gradually to about the middle of the month, after when, if the 
leaves droop occasionally before the watering is repeated, it will rather 
benefit than injure them. If you have a dry pavement or gravel 
walk it will materially conduce to the ripening of the wood and the 
formation of fruit buds, if you lay the pots on their sides by day (or 
they may remain so if convenient) ; the radiation of heat from a hard 
walk or pavement is very great, and will greatly assist the ripening 
process of both wood and foliage. If the surface of the floor could be 
blackened, so much greater would be the temperature within a foot of 
its surface by the absorption and radiation of the sun’s rays; the hori¬ 
zontal position of the wood also assists the perfect maturity of the fruit 
buds. 
In our next we shall detail how to pot the trees and store for the 
winter. 
ON THE CULTIVATION OP THE AURICULA. 
Twice this summer I have been asked for a modern treatise on the 
cultivation of the Auricula, and to each inquiry I have referred to the 
scattered papers on the subject in the Florist for the last twelve years, 
and to those of one or two other gardening periodicals. But as the 
most systematic account, and the only one which singly would be of use 
to a commencing cultivator, is one by Mr. Lightbody, published first 
in the “ Scottish Gardener,” and reprinted by permission in the Florist 
for 1852, page 32, I endeavoured to persuade Mr. Turner to supply 
the want. It would come better from him than from anybody else, 
because it has turned out upon trial that with this, as with almost every 
other plant he has tried his hand on, his success as a grower has 
distanced all competitors, in England at least, for Dr. Plant in Ireland 
and he have not yet measured their strength. But as my last querist 
is in no mood to wait, I have promised to write this for his especial 
edification. 
It is rather late, but not too late, to commence a stock when this 
appears. Owing to a detention from home, by the serious illness of a 
member of my family, I shall not be able to repot my own till that time, 
and yet I hope to appear at the Botanic Gardens in London next spring 
with undiminished lustre. There is yet time with careful treatment after 
potting to procure a sufficiency of new root', before winter to ensure a 
good bloom. After trying all the prescribed times for repotting, I have 
come to the conclusion that the best time is at the end, not at the 
beginning of their summer rest; when vigour begins to show itself in 
a renewal of growth after the heats of summer are past; and that 
probably as soon after this as is convenient is the best; that is quite at 
the end of July or in the first half of August, The plants, which are 
slow in all things, will then have time to establish themselves before 
winter, which in the case of small, young, or weakly plants, is of great 
importance. Late potting is also said to diminish the number of 
