272 
THE FLORIST. 
from violent rains. The summer’s sun appears to me the only thing 
they will not bear. My own practice for the last two years has been 
to leave them in their frames facing the north, as they always do from 
the time the first pip opens ; and I am satisfied with the result of this 
treatment, which, however, was adopted because I have no good place 
to expose them in. 
But now there is a dodpe worth the attention of those who grow for 
profit. The Auricula is a slow propagator, and you cannot take cuttings 
as from a Dahlia. Nevertheless in May an approach to it may be 
made. If you find any plants 10 'th offsets loi 0 down,yo\x may do what 
you cannot do with safety at any other time—cut off the head just 
above the offsets, and under a glass it will soon root, and of the offsets 
perhaps two, certainly one, will be a full flowering plant next season. 
I suffered for this in the case of an expensive plant by doing it in June, 
but it was late in June, when the plant was going to rest. In May I 
would not hesitate to decapitate Maria herself. (It was by this means 
that the late Mr. Weltjic, of Hammersmith, obtained his immense 
stock of Leigh’s Colonel Taylor forty years ago.) 
It is at this the summer period of growth that strict watch must be 
kept for a little black caterpillar, very small and very destructive ; for 
if not discovered it will eat out the heart of the plant and destroy it. 
But they should be gone over once a week at least, to remove dead 
foliage, greenfly, and black caterpillar. 
There are two diseases, or two forms of one disease, to which they 
are very liable—the rot, wet and dry; the former infectious, rapid, 
and sweeping ; and the latter, unless taken early and treated with great 
care, destructive to the individual. The former attacks the foliage first, 
the latter the stem. When a leaf looks in part semi-transparent and 
dissolved (Mr. Lightbody says, when the plant hangs its head, but the 
disease will have made great progress when that is the case), and the 
peculiar spicy smell of the Auricula is intensified and coarse, beware as 
you would of a Potato field that emits a strong Potato smell. Remove 
at once every infected plant, or you may lose your whole collection in a 
month. But if you are early, you need not lose a single patient. If 
the soil is moist you must shake it out, take off every suspected leaf, 
and repot in soil nearly dry, consisting of loam and sand in about equal 
proportions, with one-fourth charcoal in coarse powder. It must be as 
nearly dry as is consistent with 1 fe to the plant, and kept so till 
recovery takes place; and the earliest indications of spreading disease 
must be watched for and removed. If the soil is tolerably dry when 
the discovery is made, and you are certain the fault is not in that, there 
will be no need of shaking it out. Remove every tainted leaf, and keep 
the plant as dry as it can be to live till healthy growth begins to return, 
and be very sparing of water then. It is said to be generally brought 
on by indiscriminate watering, or by suffering water to stagnate in the 
heart. And probably that may sometimes be the exciting cause ; but 
I know that the mischief is often taken in at the root, and is due 
to other things than pure water. The worst and most destructive case 
I ever knew was clearly traceable to the misuse of stimulants. 
The dry form of rot also gives out a strong aromatic smell of Auricula 
