116 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
October 22, 1892. 
FLORICULTURE. 
Auriculas in the South. 
Under the above heading “R. D." has a very 
interesting article in last week's issue. To me it is 
indeed pleasant reading to learn that the efforts of 
the Reading men are so much appreciated, and that 
the measure of their success is so generously 
acknowledged by one of the leading writers to the 
gardening press. 
The list of names given by “ R. D.” by no means 
exhausts the number of growers in this town and 
other parts of the south. Mention should be made 
of Mr. Sanders, gardener to the Viscountess Chew- 
ton, Cobham, who, full of enthusiam and love for 
the flower, is gradually but surely winning his way to 
the front. And again, Mr. Gilbert, gardener to the 
Rev. Mr. Flood, Merrow Rectory, who has but 
recently entered the field of competitors, has proved 
that he too can both grow and stage the flower in an 
admirable manner. 
Mr. H. Selfe Leonard, of Hitherbury, Guildford, 
is getting together a large and very high class collec¬ 
tion, and has proved his ability to cultivate them by 
some splendid examples which he staged in the large 
class of fifty at our last show, and indeed I might 
continue this list of new growers in the south to an 
inordinate length, but it would not be wise to tempt 
the sharp scissors of our patient editor further. 
The fact that Mr. Nutt and Mr. Rebbick have 
taken to the Auricula is news full of interest and 
pleasure to me, and I heartily congratulate them 
upon the step they have taken, and wish them every 
success in their new venture. Like their fellow 
townsman, Mr. Keen, these gentlemen a r e well 
known as very successful cultivators of the Carna¬ 
tion, and there is no reason why they should not 
prove equally as skilful with the Auricula, and I 
sincerely hope they will make their mark upon the 
exhibition table during the forthcoming season. 
I was much interested in Mr. Keen’s “new 
routine,” and am glad to hear it has answered so 
well. But one word of caution, my friend. During 
the first three months of the year, when the cold, 
biting, shrivelling east winds are upon us, be careful 
and not let the plants have too much of this or you 
will rue it. It won’t do to have the doors and sides 
open then—a little ventilation from the top will be 
sufficient. Nothing spoils the chance of a good 
Auricula bloom so much as a cold nipping east wind 
with a clear sky and bright sun. It was such 
weather as this in the early part of last spring that 
did so much damage to the bloom of the present 
year. 
With regard to the question asked by “ R. D.” 
whether the two new greens, Mrs. Henwood and 
Abbe Liszt, will be put into circulation, I think I 
can safely say that Abbe Liszt will be sent out as 
soon as ever the raiser, Mr. Douglas, lg,as sufficient 
stock to justify him in doing so. What Mr. 
Barlow's intentions are with regard to Mrs. 
Henwood I cannot say, but I have no manner of 
doubt Mr. Barlow is as anxious that it should be in 
the hands of growers, who long for it, quite as much 
as they are to have it. 
We must not overlook the fact that it takes many 
years to get up a stock of some Auriculas, and this 
doubtless is the reason why new varieties come out 
so slowly. Now and again we have an exception, 
Barlow’s Mrs. Potts for instance. If all Auriculas 
would increase with the same rapidity as this does 
there would be but little difficulty in putting them 
into commerce in a very short space of time. 
Barlow’s Mrs. Henwood is a flower with a splendid 
constitution, and with age should give off offsets 
freely. It has much the same freedom of growth as 
the Rev. F. D. Horner, and somewhat resembles 
that variety in the character of its foliage. Abbe 
Liszt has beautiful foliage, very distinct, but not so 
rampant as Mrs. Henwood. It is a lovely flower, but 
not over free in producing offsets. So many 
enquiries have been made for it that Mr. Douglas 
will be only too pleased to send it out as soon as 
ever he possibly can. I am pleased to hear Mr. 
Thos. Lansdown has raised so promising a green, 
and hope to have the pleasure of seeing it in London 
next April. James Hannaford is a good doer, and 
Mr. Simonite assures me it is a very fine green. 
I agree with “ R. D.’’ that we have had a very- 
good Auricula season during the past summer, and I 
hope we may have, what we have not experienced 
for some years past, a favourable spring, and then, I 
am thinking, we shall indeed have a glorious show 
next April.— T. E Henivood, Reading. 
The Auricula: New Varieties. 
In the interests of the Auricula, and in correction of 
some ideas about Auricula seedlings, I would notice 
some points in your correspondent’s paper of 
October 15. The Auricula is not given to making 
increase every year, like the free and easy going Carna¬ 
tion ; and I think " R. D.” might now know the 
habits of the edged Auricula sufficiently not to expect 
a new seedling to be “ let out ” after a few appear¬ 
ances at the National Shows. 
He remarks that " new varieties during, the past 
ten years have been certificated, and must have 
increased, but where are they? " Well ! Some are 
dead; some have not kept to early promise; some 
have been suppressed because so mu h surpassed; 
some are being propagated as fast as they will 
breed ; and some are just where they were at first— 
solitary seed plants. In this last category I have 
several white edges and green edges of 1881 of which 
there is not yet a second plant. 
Of Greyhound, only once seen in London some 
years ago, there are not six plants yet; while of two 
other grey edges of 1885 and 1887 there are only the 
original plants. Selfs are not so shy, though there 
are only three plants yet of Melanie, raised in i 885 . 
These are only a few instances, under my own 
experience, of an Auricula continuing for years in a 
healthy state, but giving little or no increase. Some 
seem to form no eyes upon the stem that can be 
induced to break—and, as may be expected in a 
world full of hopes deferred, it is usually some very 
good thing that makes slow progress and long delay. 
A plant of this shy habit is often unusually long- 
lived. Commonly any one plant of the Auricula is 
a perennial in only a limited sense. It remains a few 
years in a vigorous state, and then constitutionally 
declines. Thus a plant raised is not for ever a plant 
gained. 
Neither does it follow that any strong plant ex¬ 
hibited will be available next time too, and become 
“ an old stager.” Our northern experience with 
Auriculas taken to the southern shows is that they 
sustain a very perceptible check, often great enough 
to throw the plant out of order for a season. Flowers 
are always paralysed, and opening buds are checked. 
Necessary removal out of pots risks the breakage of 
the strong young roots which the plants are making 
and urgently require. The long journey in dark 
boxes; the vile atmosphere of London, and the 
withering draughts of its dreary exhibition place, all 
inflict material injury. True, these last two evils 
befal us all alike; but the first two tell specially 
against the plants that have hundreds of miles to 
travel. Both Mr. Simonite and myself have lost 
valuable seedlings by bringing the only plant to a 
London show. 
New seedlings are, so to say, “ a flying column ; ” 
often, and sometimes for long, cut off from their 
"base” of any stock at home; plants that carry 
their lives in their hands. 
It is a thing to be thankful for rather than to ex¬ 
pect, that a highly bred and first-rate edged Auricula 
should be prolific. The “huge strong plants with 
apparently abundance of increase upon them,” 
which “ R. D." has seen every year in London, I 
should guess are generally of the more free habited 
“self” class. There has never been any such in¬ 
crease on any of my plants in London. Indeed I do 
not, and will not grow them “ huge." I know what 
mere hugeness means with the Auricula. It means 
plants that up to February and March look like 
beating everything. It may look even like “ the best 
grown collection " thus far ; but it means, in the true 
test of April, plants that give disappointing and 
unruly trusses; trusses on which the pips that 
should be the best are big to coarseness ; leading 
pips that have nothing of the purity, refinement, 
balance, and quiet gentleness of the Auricula about 
them ; pips unshapely, rough of outline, goggle-eyed; 
pips merely fit for cutting out, thus leaving only the 
inner ones which on edged flowers are of weaker 
properties in direct ratio to their nearness to the 
centre of the truss. 
Auriculas may be grown strong enough to show 
the full size and perfection of their flowers, but the 
temptation should be resisted to run them into the 
gross and fleshly habit under which they will forget 
themselves. 
Auriculas are not judged for distant and back¬ 
ground effects, in which “huge” plants might look 
imposing or overwhelming. They have to face close 
and individual scrutiny on delicate points of quality. 
They are floral jewellery, and not mere stage effects. 
In no plant is quality more superior to mere bulk and 
bigness than in this. Even the bigness of its show 
environment has a reflex adverse effect upon the 
Auricula. It is dwarfed in the hugeness of the sur¬ 
rounding space, and both in Manchester and London 
the light is bad to a ghastly degree. The Auricula 
only looks its true self at home, near to the eye, and 
in the cool clear light of the unadulterated day. 
The scarcity of the best sorts in circulation, en¬ 
tailing difficulty to beginners in getting a collection 
together, is a matter of which I wrote so far back as 
1876. It is the natural revenge of the plant, which 
I feared might be taken; the revenge of an old 
favourite overlooked, neglected, forgotten ; of a plant 
that, if once lost, could never be regained ; and 
which in its scarcity could not make quick response 
to a sudden call to popularity. The few old growers 
are not to blame for this, though they cannot but be 
sorry for it. 
" R. D." speaks of large collections, but they would 
not be esteemed so in any other plant. A score of 
full-blooming sized plants out of mine would leave a 
very evident blank—at least to me—and I have not 
a dozen of the old sorts among them. I have neither 
space nor time for a trade collection, neither do I 
grow seedlings for the sake of “letting out "anything 
that might pass for an Auricula. I have thought 
about those Auriculas raised by even such growers 
as Geo. Lightbody and Richard Headly, varieties 
that are heard of now no more, because they were 
never trusty first-rate flowers. They were admittedly 
inferior to the best sorts of their own day; and mere 
variety, coupled with inferiority of properties, was 
not a sure foundation. 
Let us have good things, even though we have less 
of them. I know of no raiser of Auriculas who has 
the means to keep and multiply everything he raises 
that might do as a low-grade flower for awhile. At 
least I cannot and would not do it. It is a kind of 
success I should not care for. It is a success not 
worth succeeding in. And it is misunderstood. If 
a seedling that satisfies me is let out, and gets found 
fault with, I cannot help it, and do not care ; but I 
shall not formally circulate any Auricula in w'hich I 
have not seen fair cause for confidence. Only 
Heroine and Sapphire have thus “ come out.” 
" R. D." asks, “ Has anyone bloomed James Han¬ 
naford ? ” Assuredly yes—and for years past. It is 
a green edge of Mr. Simonite’s, and has appeared at 
the Northern shows, and has also been shown 
“honoris causa," by the raiser, at the Scottish 
National Exhibitions. 
Again " R. D." enquires “ will those two grand 
greens, Barlow’s Mrs. Henwood and Douglas' Abbe 
Liszt, be put into circulation ? ” Mrs. Henwood is a 
young sort, and I should doubt if there are six plants 
yet. Abbe Liszt, I believe, is in distribution, but may 
not be abundant. "R. D.” invites reply from Auricula 
growers about allowing no seedlings not in commerce 
to compete against those that are. That is whether 
they shall be excluded from free and open competi¬ 
tion, and the flowers of established reputation be 
hedged about as if afraid of them. 
My plain answer is, that a more short-sighted, 
mischievous, subversive, retrogressive step could not 
be imagined or carried out. It will be said I have 
an interest in seedlings—and I know I have. Also I 
might as easily observe that some have an interest in 
old sorts. However, I should still raise seedling 
Auriculas if they were excluded from all shows, just 
as I raised them aforetime before ever these revived 
shows were. 
But I would note that to debar seedlings from open 
competitions is to stop all direct comparison between 
attainments old and new. It deprives a new variety, 
perhaps only yet a single plant, of the chance of 
competing with a sort that like Geo. Lightbody 
may have seen thirty years of public life, and of 
which there may be much stock, and many examples 
brought. 
To shut out the seedling from open competition is 
to rob the classes of a feature of interest which is 
perhaps fresh and always attractive. In some cases 
it might discourage the spirit of enterprise and pro¬ 
gress that seeks to surpass past attainments. Com¬ 
petition of new seedlings against the best things out; 
competition of seedlings in classes amongst them¬ 
selves ; competition wherever competition can be, 
is the truest test; the test most trusty, and most 
trusted. 
