THE PINK. 
251 
purple, approaching black — should reach from 
the inside of the petal far enough outwards to 
show in front beyond the petals above it, and 
form a rich eye. 
4. A narrow plain even lacing or stripe of 
the colour, should appear inside the white 
edge, which should be just the same width 
outside the lacing, as the lacing itself is, and 
as even. 
5. There should be no break or vacancy in 
the lacing, and the colour inside of the petal 
ought, as well as the lacing, to be well defined, 
forming a circular coloured eye or centre to 
each row of petals. 
6. Self-coloured petals, split petals, and split 
pods, are disqualifications. Notched or saw- 
like edges, broken or imperfect lacing, specks 
or foul marks on the white, thinness or flimsi- 
ness of texture, looseness of construction, or 
deficiency of petals, are glaring faults. 
7. In a general way, in all other respects but 
the size and colouring, the properties of the 
pink should be similar to those of the carnation 
and picotee ; and no pink ought to be less than 
two inches in diameter. 
The progress of the pink — that is, the tran- 
sition from saw-edged petals to rose -leaved 
petals, as they are improperly called — has been 
slow ; and such is the disposition to a serrated 
edge, that some of the kinds which will one 
season bloom almost without a notch, will in 
other seasons be rough and serrated. But this 
disposition may be conquered by any one 
raiser of new sorts, who will uniformly throw 
away, or give away, all the varieties which 
come at all rough, or which do not exhibit a 
manifest improvement, and reserve none but 
those whose petals, many or few, are of the 
right kind. A semi-double variety with good 
petals is infinitely better to save seed from 
than the most double flowers which are de- 
ficient in that particular ; and no flower offers 
so much opportunity and so much room for 
improvement. 
These rules are now acted upon throughout 
the country, more or less. In some few places, 
however, where the marking of the flower is 
considered of higher importance than the 
form, they still treat the pink as a semidouble 
flower ; and if they can get two rows of petals, 
and two to stick up back to back, they think 
it enough, and therefore exhibit loose, flat, 
ill-looking specimens, which among the floi'ists 
more advanced in taste would be thrown away; 
and as a handsome double flower would make 
such things look very ridiculous, they actually 
pull out the petals of any that would by their 
superior form and character show the semi- 
double varieties off to a disadvantage, and 
reduce them to the miserable state of the ma- 
jority. The varieties, therefore, which will do 
well enough for some localities, would be con- 
sidered a complete take-in if sold in the south : 
but the difficulty of making a man adopt an 
improved race, when it renders all his present 
collection worthless, is by no means easily got 
over; and the facility with which he can raise 
the sorts good enough for such easily pleased 
people, increases the difficulty. In a quantity 
of seedlings raised near London, one great 
improvement in the kinds we already possess, 
in a hundred or two, would satisfy a man, and 
of the remainder which he would throw to the 
dunghill there could be a score semidouble 
varieties that would be acceptable where the 
miserable things we speak of are shown. It 
is, therefore, not likely they should adopt 
hastily a style of pink which would condemn 
their starvelings to destruction ; and that the 
public may not see the contrast they reduce 
our best varieties to two rows of petals, when 
obliged to show them. Time, however, has 
done wonders, and will continue, in spite of a 
vitiated taste and opposing interest, to make 
inroads upon the easily procured but worth- 
less kinds which, for the present, form the 
majority of collections in particular localities; 
though every year lessens the ground they 
occupy, and narrows the influence of the 
florists who obstinately defend a race of flowers 
half a century behind the improvements of the 
southern cultivators. We proceed now to the 
culture of this pleasing but somewhat neglected 
beauty. 
SOIL AND SITUATION. 
The soil best suited for pinks is similar to 
that recommended for all florists' flowers, rich 
in vegetable mould ; and if dung be used it 
should be well' decomposed. There is, per- 
haps, nothing equal to the top three inches of 
a meadow ; this takes in the turf and all its 
roots, and when rotted is of all composts the 
best. It contains sufficient loam for all pur- 
poses, a very large portion of decayed ve- 
getables, and much of the qualities of dung, 
from the feeding of cattle in the pasture. This 
laid together for a year and then turned over, 
and the wire worms, grubs, and other vermin 
carefully picked out, might be chopped to 
pieces, and used in a pink bed ; but for the 
sake of more effectually rotting the vegetable 
matter, and at the same time making a complete 
clearance of vermin, it is desirable to let it 
lie by a second year, during which time it 
should be all turned over four or five times. 
It need hardly be mentioned here, that the 
presence of wire worms is fatal to pinks ; 
there is nothing so destructive, nor so difficult 
to eradicate; salt has no effect on them ; lime- 
water is useless ; they seem to resist all kinds 
of poison, even that which would actually kill 
the plants themselves. While the compost is 
in the heap a vast number may be caught by 
