100 
October 15, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
FliORICUliTURE. 
Auriculas in the South. 
It is pleasant to see that a very promising school of 
young growers of the Auricula is coming to the 
front, and some of them taking places close up 
to some of the older cultivators who made their mark 
years ago. There is the Reading School for instance : 
Messrs. T. E. Henwood, C. Phillips, W. L. Walker, 
W. Badcock, and G.Wheelwright among competitors, 
and Messrs.T Fife and]. Gibson among thosewho culti¬ 
vate collections ; but as they do it in cold frames, 
rarely, if ever, are they in bloom by the annual show 
in April. We may say of Mr. Henwood that he 
is now pretty equal to that past master in the art 
art of Auricula culture, the Rev. F. D. Horner, and 
any meeting on the exhibition table between these 
two doughty champions is certain to be one full of 
interest. At Southampton a kind of branch school in 
Auricula culture is being formed. Already Messrs. 
Keen, Nutt, and Rebbeck, all Southamptonians.have 
given us a taste of their quality—and good quality 
too—as Carnation growers ; and now they are taking 
up the Auricula. Mr. Keen has already exhibited 
with some success ; and the taste for distinction 
grows with him, and he is seeking to add a few 
cracks to his collection. He therefore well deserves a 
helping hand from anyone who has an overflow of 
good varieties. 
But Southampton, open to the balmy influences 
which makes the Isle of Wight such a pleasant 
winter resort, is mild and early, and while some 
growers experience difficulties in getting their plants 
in bloom early enough, the quickening influences of 
the awakening spring-time seem to reach him too 
early, even though his plants are in an ordinary 
frame, and so he has entered this autumn upon what 
he terms a new routine. Mr. Keen states, 11 1 am 
away all day long, and therefore unable to give my 
plants so much air as I should like, so I have had a 
small house made facing the north, and where no 
sunshine can fall upon the plants, with moveable 
glass side, so that by leaving the sides and door open, 
and pulling down the top lights a few inches, this 
keeps off the rain, and the Auriculas are practically 
in the open air. The result has far exceeded my ex¬ 
pectations, the plants are very fine, dwarf, and yet 
vigorous, and what is more important, there is no 
sign of autumn blooming." Mr. Keen purposes 
keeping his plants in this house all the winter and 
spring, and he believes the change of position and 
aspect will make the difference of a fortnight in 
blooming. Let us hope it will be so, and that when 
this lusty young fighter goes forth again from South¬ 
ampton to the field of battle, he may return joyously, 
bringing with him a pocketful of prize money. 
I heartily sympathise with Mr. Keen and his 
brother growers over the lament they make as to the 
difficulty of obtaining new and choice varieties with 
which to strengthen their collections. We see every 
year huge strong plants exhibited, with to all 
appearance plenty of off-shoots; and we wonder 
what becomes of them. Application to the growers 
of large collections brings little comfort and less 
plants, and we wonder again what becomes of the 
increase. We cannot think they delight in keeping 
them in their own hands in order to have an 
advantage on the exhibition table ? Perish such a 
thought so suggestive of mere selfishness, and yet 
during the past ten years new varieties have been 
certificated, and must have increased ; but where are 
they ? and we cry to the gods of the floral Olympus 
in vain for help and none comes. I sometimes think 
that it would be but fair play all round if only those 
plants put publicly into commerce, and therefore 
affording a chance of being obtainable by all, should 
be allowed to be exhibited. Have classes for new 
varieties and seedlings by all means. What do 
growers say ? 
Will those two grand greens, Barlow's Mrs. 
Hanwood and Douglas’ Abbe Liszt, be put into 
circulation ? We are badly in want of companion 
varieties to the Rev. F. D. Horner, Colonel Taylor 
and Prince of Greens, though both strong in some 
points are so lamentably weak in the tube, that it is 
time they were replaced, and yet it may be years 
before we get an Auricula with the brilliant edge of 
green of Colonel Taylor. Talisman is almost a 
failure; it is well alive to the importance of the 
edict to increase and multiply, and seems to do it at 
the expense of size. 
Has anyone bloomed James Hannaford ? It is a 
green edge, out a year or so ago, by Mr. B. Simonite, 
of Sheffield. A plant of it has just come into my 
hands, and the sender states it is very fine. A new 
variety named Thomas Lansdowm, raised at Swindon, 
is said to be in the way of the Rev. F. D. Homer, 
but with a stronger tube. We may perhaps hope to 
see these two next season. 
I think so far we have had a good Auricula season 
during the past summer, and the plants, as far as I 
see and hear, are entering upon their autumn course 
with confidence. Heaven send a favourable winter, 
less fog and more brightness ; a balmy and traditional 
spring, warm, genial, and seasonable, and a good 
show in April.— R. D. 
-■*-- 
A BLUE CARNATION. 
When Dr. Johnson was once to’d that a piece 
of music, to whose execution by a young lady on the 
harpsichord he had been listening, was a most diffi¬ 
cult one, he replied, " Sir, I wish it had been impos¬ 
sible.” I for one am not sorry to hear that in 
the opinion of Mr. Chaundy, who has evidently given 
attention to the subject, the attainment of the blue 
Carnation, unlike the performance that so exercised 
the sage of Bolt Court, is not merely difficult, but 
impossible. 
Some floral nabob, sighing for a new floral 
pleasure, may be ready to bestow an untold guerdon 
on the man who should provide him with with a blue 
Rose, a blue Dahlia, or a blue Carnation, and the 
trade grower may perhaps rub his hands in secret at 
the thoughts of the golden harvest that might be 
garnered by him who should first get such " novelties ” 
into his hands. But lovers of these flowers, if I 
mistake not, don’t pine for them. 
Nature, which is so bountiful in everything, has 
been apparently chary in her bestowal of flowers of a 
really blue tint—the Gentian, the Salvia, the Delphi¬ 
nium will occur readily to most people as almost 
exhausting the list. 
Massive flowers like the Dahlia and the Rose, and 
even the Carnation, seem unsuited to this true blue 
colour. The density of their material is incompatible 
with a colour the characteristic of which, with all its 
depth, is always lucidity and brightness. It seems 
better left as nature has given it us, among the single 
and the smaller flowers. A blue Primrose or a blue 
Auricula—self or white edge—we might expect to be 
beautiful flowers, as against them the same objection 
could not be urged. 
But I am also glad to see Mr. Chaundy's letter 
on other grounds. He is evidently “ making the 
best of both worlds ” as he finds them at Oxford. 
Having profited so well by the exceptional oppor¬ 
tunities he has had there as a cultivator and a 
seedling raiser of the Carnation, he has not for¬ 
gotten that it has its other side for him as a centre 
of learning, where the stores of scientific research— 
for some time keenly directed on this subject of 
colouration in flowers—lie to the hand of him who 
will avail himself of them. 
The union of cultivator and scientist is one that 
should in due time be productive of good results. 
Not the least interesting among them—for florists at 
least—would be the solution of our abiding mystery 
" Why Carnations run ? " May it fall to the lot of 
our young friend to give it to us.— M. Rowan. 
Thanks, many thanks, to our mutual friends, Dean 
and Chaundy, for their observations on the grey- 
ground Carnation and the possibilities of obtaining 
a blue one. I have known and grown the grey- 
ground variety at various times during the last forty 
years, but I have never seen any approach to a blue 
one nearer than purple or violet. Still I would 
never doubt the possibility of Nature at some time 
or other leaving out the red and conserving the blue, 
grey being formed of red and blue (the two essential 
constituents of purple) laid on a white ground. 
Nearly half a century ago, from a batch of Conti¬ 
nental seedlings I selected a delicate grey satin self, 
of such purity of colour and perfection of form that 
I was induced to call it the Quakers’ grey satin. The 
purity of the neutral tint, together with the brilliant 
satin texture, was so remarkable that I continued its 
culture for some years; but it found such scant 
favour with my friends the florists, its want of bright¬ 
ness in colour not satisfying their taste, and even¬ 
tually I lost it with some other good things obtained 
from the same source. As time went on, fashion 
nearly banished the Carnation from our gardens; 
still I held in remembrance the gloriously beautiful 
colouring and grotesque markings of the flowers 
possessed by our Continental friends, and whenever 
I could obtain a few seeds of the fancy strain from a 
reliable source I was ever on the look-out for good 
things, and not unfrequently renewed my acquaint¬ 
ance with the greys. The difficulty of getting good 
seed, however, was so great that I had almost given 
up Carnation culture, when Mr. Dodwell some 
fifteen years ago began the revival which has led to 
such grand progress as has since been made. The 
old love came back, and I took up with the standard 
English florists’ varieties. I had still a hankering 
after the soft, delicately coloured flow'ers favoured by 
the French, German, and Italian florists, and fortu¬ 
nately became possessed of a packet of seed from 
Mr. Benary, of Erfurt. The result was the revival 
of the yellow grounds and the popularising of the 
fancy colours. I have sitice that time raised thou¬ 
sands of seedlings annually, and the results have 
been so invariably satisfactory that I just treat them 
now as I would any other hardy biennial or peren¬ 
nial, sowing seeds at various intervals from January 
to May, and growing the seedlings on in the first 
year in the kitchen garden. In the autumn they are 
transferred to the home garden as soon as the 
ground is cleared of the old plants, which are given 
away or otherwise got rid of; as, unless there is 
something extraordinarily good among them, I do 
not trouble to increase them by layering. 
Of course I grow a fair number of the standard 
varieties to name in pots, including the Benary fancy 
and \ellow grounds, but the greatest delight is to 
watch and wait for the development of the blooms of 
the seedlings in the open ground, as they come on in 
succession. I have still a number in bloom, and 
others I have taken up and potted which I anticipate 
will carry me on with flowers during the winter and 
spring. Of course these come from the late sowings. 
If •' R. D.” had given me a call during the season, 
he might have seen the greys in bloom in variety 
from the delicate silver grey to the densest slate 
colour, some tinted with carmine or heliotrope, and 
others flaked with bright orange-scarlet. With such 
fanciful freaks who can doubt the possibility of 
nature giving us a blue Carnation. As to the yellow 
grounds, they are, as the ladies say, " sweetly pretty.'' 
The blooms of Mrs. R. Sydenham, shown at the 
Midland Carnation and Picotee Society’s show, 
marked such an advance in the yellow Picotee 
section, as to lead us to hope that ere long we may 
get a yellow ground with a heavy edge of maroon.— 
William Wardill, Luton. 
--5*- 
AUSTIN’S ECLIPSE 
TOMATO. 
From an all-round point of view this Tomato is one 
of the best I have seen or grown among other 
favourite varieties. The specimens of fruit are of 
good size, handsome in shape, which is globular, and 
the colour is of fine glossy description. It is also a 
good cropper, and well adapted for early work. Con¬ 
trary to the experience of another growler, I could 
not detect the slightest trace of disease among the 
plantations, of which I had successions for early, 
mid-season, and late supplies. 
The objectionable scar so prominent in some other 
varieties just where the flower chips is scarcely per¬ 
ceptible in Eclipse,, which renders it more suitable 
for exhibition purposes. For early supplies we grew 
it along with Lorillard and Northern Beauty on 
raised benches against the back wall of a forcing 
house, and they all ripened about the same time, 
although Lorillard is said to be a specially good 
forcer. For later crops narrow' borders along the 
foot of the back walls of vineries were utilised, and 
in one house where the vines are young and the roof 
not too much shaded exceptionally fine examples of 
Eclipse were produced. The compost of the borders 
and the beds which the plants occupied were made 
up of ordinary garden soil void of rank manure, to 
which was added fully a third part of old lime rub¬ 
bish, the beds being left tolerably firm when finished. 
In common with the usual applications of special 
manures as soon as the first fruits set, timely atten¬ 
tion to the removal of lateral growths, as well as 
thinning the clusters when needful are essential in 
securing a circulation of air, thus promoting the 
health of the plants and benefiting the crops. We 
