THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
117 
human undertaking. The truth is quite otherwise, as many 
a cottager who has u blundered ” into floriculture without 
knowing anything of properties and exhibitions could attest 
by the bonny pinks and carnations in his little garden. We 
have had, and indeed still have, great clumps of cloves stand¬ 
ing twelve years in the same borders, with hard woody stems 
as thick as a child’s wrist, and great twisted branches of the 
CARNATION, 
size of walking-sticks, and heads of grass covering a square 
yard of ground, and these in the summer bearing hundreds 
of grand flowers of the richest colour and most powerful 
perfume. It is not in this way, however, that flowers of the 
finest quality such as a florist would admire are produced. 
One of the first requisites to success in the cultivation of 
carnations, picotees, and pinks, is to acquire skill in propa- 
