1881 . ] 
MR. HORNER S LECTURE ON THE AURICULA. 
07 
favourite flowers received the most constant atten¬ 
tion, which at the same time refreshed the toiler 
himself with a healthful, winsome recreation. 
But the long peremptory hours of a factory day 
rendered all this impossible. The great hard-featured 
mills grew up over green fields and garden grounds, 
mammoth organisms in brick and mortar, stone 
and iron, seeming in their high chimney-stalks to 
send up a mighty, hideous sort of flower-stem, 
blossoming with black wreaths of smoke and 
sulphureous perfume ! Then the scattered villages 
grew and conglomerated into towns, the light of the 
hand-weavers’ windows died out, and seemed to 
be concentrated in the gaslight glare from the long 
storeys of windows in the mills ; the familiar clatter 
of the old handloom ceased, and the click of the 
shuttle that wove the silk or wool, as the tick of the 
old clock spun out the time. 
“ Under the changes of those days many ceased 
to grow their old favourites for lack of time or 
space, and because they would not see them languish 
under any unwonted neglect. 
“ Their little shows had nothing of the grand 
accessories that are here, but the very spirit of 
vitality was in them— sincerity, patience, and love. 
They were held in the upper room of some old inn, 
and made a very lively sensation for miles around, 
a stir like a village wake or fair. 
“ What excitement it was for the anxious exhibi¬ 
tors, assembled in the room below, to wait for the 
winning plants being sent down from the ‘ upper 
element,’ where the judges were deciding fates! 
In the later part of the day followed songs and 
anecdotes and florist gossip ; and at going-home 
time, the assembly dispersed, with the first-prize¬ 
men conspicuous by a gleaming copper kettle in 
hand. Always kettles for the best flower in the 
room, and for the first in every class. Perhaps 
none was a prouder man that day than he who, as 
a new beginner, carried the 1 Colts’ Kettle ’ home ! 
“ The Auricula has been a flower neglected for 
many years till lately. For inexorable causes, such 
as those that parted it from old friends like these, 
we can feel sympathy, but not for every reason that 
has made it now so scarce. Mr. Lightbody, whose 
name is so associated with Auriculas, used to tell me 
he had many wasteful customers, who every spring 
would write for a relay of large plants, much as they 
might order spring bulbs from their seedsmen. 
They kept Scotland going as we keep Holland; for 
Lightbody, who grew his own plants mostly in long- 
legged garden frames, would have been' again and 
again exhausted, but for being able to fall back on 
large collections in different parts of the country. 
“ The Auricula is no such forgiving plant as the 
docile hyacinth, that in return for having its heart 
scooped out like an apple in the cook’s hand, will 
return a hundredfold in good for evil, in repaying 
the unkindest cut of all with a handful of useful 
off-sets. Auriculas grown only for a brief display, 
and left to pine in neglect afterwards, are not in the 
hands of men worth the name of florist. 
“ I have spoken of the Auricula in Lancashire, for 
that is such a representative county in the history 
of the flower; but fifty years ago we find by old 
records that almost every district in Yorkshire, 
Staffordshire, Cheshire, as well as Lancashire, had 
its circle ,of Auricula-growers. So, too, had many 
other counties. In Cambridgeshire lived Richard 
Headly, a renowned florist, and the raiser of one of 
our best Auriculas, George Lightbody. There were 
also shows and societies in the home counties, and 
many growers about London, where Page’s Cham¬ 
pion and many other sorts of lesser fame were 
raised. 
“ But the Auricula is the oldest florist flower in 
precedence of excellence. There were good Auriculas 
when there were no Roses such as there are now; 
when the Pelargonium was a thin imperfect thing; 
the Cineraria a star far from her present magnitude ; 
the Calceolaria had little of that fine inflation in 
which it now appears, a floral exposition of the 
ambitious frog in the fable, who perished miserably 
in the attempt to enlarge himself to something much 
above his sphere ; when Fuchsias were almost as 
they had been found, and the Gladiolus was yet 
but a botanical accuracy. 
“ I am indebted to the researches of one of our 
oldest florists, Mr. John Slater, for some interesting 
information about the earliest edged Auriculas. He 
has spent a long life in the vei’y centre of Auricula- 
culture, acquainted with many a grower, and even 
raiser, of the old sorts. When I mention names, I 
must ask you to attach more than a mere nominal 
importance to them, in that our Auricula being a 
derived flower, not found wild anywhere, no vast 
importations and auction sales of it are possible. 
Names have therefore here the weight of species. 
The raiser is the introducer, and his little garden is 
a native country. 
“ The very names are largely suggestive of the 
estimation and good report in which the flowers 
were held by their raisers. Hence they are expres¬ 
sive of greatness and supremacy, and we have, e.g., 
Champion, Hero, Conqueror of Europe, Rule-all, 
Revenge, Bang-up, Glory, Incomparable, Freedom, 
Imperator, Ringleader, Complete, True Blue, and 
so forth. Three-fourths of the old growers were also 
gooseberry-growers; and here, too, are names of 
like great import: Conquering Hero, Overall, 
Leader, Thumper, Crown Bob, London, Wonder¬ 
ful, and not last, Roaring Lion. No one had the 
diffidence to name his new pet berry Second 
Fiddle or Knock-under. If he were a bird- 
fancier, he did not select Tom-tit or Humming¬ 
bird, but chose him Ostrich, Eagle, or Peacock. It 
is quite time that our newspaper press, from the 
large dailies down to small provincial weeklies, had 
their seeming ignorance of what the big Gooseberry 
really is revealed to themselves. It might be that 
no dish of the genuine berry had ever smiled on 
editorial tables, or we Bhould not have the big 
Gooseberry a gibe and synonym for that which 
is vapid and inflated. From the florist, how¬ 
ever, has spread a desire for great names to the 
producers- of excelling fruits and improved vege¬ 
tables, and that bold challenging is now indulged in 
alike by the Knights of Flora and Pomona, and of 
the presiding deity of the kitchen-garden, Chloris, 
the Goddess of Greens! 
“ The earliest-known varieties of Auriculas were 
Rule Arbiter, a green-edge, and Hortaine, a 
white-edge; these can be traced back to 1757, 
Potts’s Eclipse following ten years later. As 
years rolled on, there were other Eclipses, notably 
(lockup’s, and from this some better flowers wore 
raised. All the green-edges of that early period 
were of a pale colour, and often bare in the dust or 
farina. Taylor’s Victory was a highly-prized 
green in 1776 ; but of all the principal varieties of 
that time, only Jingling Johnny, a green of in¬ 
ordinately broad edge, Lord Lee, a lovely carmine 
flower, but without meal, and Pillar of Beauty, a 
stiff and starched old white, are in existence now. 
Improvements were patiently carried on, until 
in 1821 we begin to find some flowers that are good 
or familiar names. Colonel Taylor and Booth’s 
Freedom appear upon the scene, two green-edges 
of which a grower with good specimens would not 
be ashamed to-day. In grey-edges Kenyon’s Ring¬ 
leader appears, the ancestral flower of that grand 
family in the greys in which Lancashire Hero, 
George Lightbody, and Richard Headly are flowers 
E 2 
