102 CARNATIONS AND PINKS 



horticultural public that have from time to time 

 appeared in the Garden have failed to bring it forth, 

 the weak flowers just described being nearly always 

 sent for it. The old black and white has petals as 

 firm in substance as a Carnation with a distinct blotch 

 of a chocolate-black colour, turning a little lighter at 

 two days' old. The jags at the edge of the petal are 

 few and blunt, never deeply cut, and the flower is not 

 more than half double, so that the black blotch shows 

 clearly. The white, from the thickness of the petal, is 

 clear and bright. 



The probable reason why the greater number of the 

 florists' Pinks are of so little use in the garden is be- 

 cause so much attention is given to the lacing at the 

 edge. This tends to muddle the flower in the mass, 

 whereas a clear ground colour and a strong blotch show 

 out well, and the plant, however full of flower, is bright 

 and handsome. It is one of the many cases in which 

 the show and the garden are at variance. As show rules 

 are more or less arbitrary, it seems a matter of regret 

 that their influence should not always be directed to 

 the making of good garden flowers, so that they might 

 work towards the greater and wider usefulness. To 

 obtain prettiness in a single bloom, or even a single 

 pip of a bloom, as seen in the hand, or close to the 

 eye on the show table, seems a less worthy object to 

 aim at than the obtaining of a beautiful thing for free 

 garden use. Here there is an opportunity for some 

 one to raise up a race that does not split. It is the 

 splitting of the calyx that constitutes one of the chief 

 defects of the garden Pink and the Carnation also, and 



