The following criteria constitute what is considered to be the main points of excellence in a prize Auricula. The stem should be strong, erect, and high enough to raise the truss of flowers above the foliage. The individual footstalk, sufficiently strong to support the flower, and of a proportional length to the number of pips, so that they may not crowd each other, and which should not be less than seven in number, that the truss may be close and compact, and form somewhat a half globe. The tube containing the anthers, the eye, and the exterior circle, ought to be well proportioned, which will be the case if the diameter of the tube be one part, the eye three, and the whole pip six or seven. If edged the margin should be about equal with the next inner circle. The edges ought to be smooth, having no serrature, so as to appear starry, and the limb or upper surface, flat and even. The nearer the outline approaches to a perfect circle the better, although the very best flowers do not quite come up to this point as yet. Whatever the colours, they should be clear, bold, and distinct, and divided in a perfect circle, or the dark markings form a circle next the eye, and extend out towards the outer rim on each lobe, so as to form so many half circles. In the selfs the colours ought to be uniform, bright and solid, or shaded off towards the outer margin distinctly and clear. Around the cultivation of nature’s greatest beauties there is generally a halo of mystery thrown. When any thing of this kind becomes recognized as a general favorite, speculative ideas, and vague theories have each a portion of precedence, and as some of these peculiarities happen to succeed, they are lauded, made public, and the tyro catches up the most ridiculous notions. Our present subject has not entirely escaped from this general contagion, for if we refer to some old and long established growers of the Auricula, we find that one thinks that the rotted down roots of the Willow, is the only matrix in which it will approach perfection; others again suppose, that nothing is so suitable as rushes decomposed into mould, and a portion of the same material cut short in a fresh state, and strewed over the drainage; while some will not believe in any fertilizer, but blood, mixed up with maiden earth, and laid together for a season. Now all these materials are well enough in their place for other things besides the Auricula, but to say that they are absolutely necessary, and that nothing else will produce the same quality, partakes of a superstitious and retrograde movement, and belongs to the old school. The fact is, all that is required, is a tolerably rich and cool base, for if too poor the plant will be weak and the flowers correspondingly so, and if too rich the trusses are apt to become monstrosities, having irregular shaped flowers, and too crowded to form a handsome bunch, with confused colours, and undefined markings. In these