58 



THE FLORIST. 



blooming or exhibition cards, elegant if you can afford it, cheap if only 

 for utility ; in fact, any village blacksmith for the trifle of half-a- 

 crown, would, from the subjoined, construct a something that would 

 meet the required purpose. Cards, elegant and suitable, can be pro- 

 cured for the Carnation and Picotee of JMessrs. Meek, Crane-court, 

 London ; but we would assist the poor man, the artisan, or cottager, 

 who cannot afford the outlay. Give the cottager means to cope with 



the wealthy in c/ass- showing, and hundreds will join our National who 

 hold back from incompetence. For I hold it ungenerous to suppose 

 that the humble clerk, artisan, or cottager may not from his twelve or 

 eighteen pots, cut the bloom that shall stand Premier at our next 

 national gathering at Oxford. And who would ?io? rejoice to see t? 

 A superb bloom is not the result of accident, but the result of combined 

 skill and attention — the latter of paramount importance. And has not 

 the amateur, even of hmited means, sufficient to outvalue the advan- 

 tages of quantity and variety in class showing with the extensive culti- 

 vator, in the matter of his undivided attention to one object ? Whereas 

 the cultivator of three or five hundred pots has perhaps fifty other ob- 

 jects to engross his time and attention, in many cases keeping them 

 alive and little more. With means to purchase every novelty, he in- 

 creases his stock beyond his power to govern it, either to his own satis- 

 faction or realisation of his hopes on the day of exhibition. Therefore, 

 I reiterate, the cottager or mechanic zealously applying the advantages 

 possessed, may not only realise a rich source of delight in the cultiva- 

 tion of a few choice Carnations and Picotees, but raise Laurels for his 

 pains from the wealthy and opulent. 



Vauxhall, December 1 8, 1854. Robert R. Oswald. 



