1876.] 
CARNATIONS AND PIOOTEES.-CHAPTER V. 99 
of development unsurpassed, and possess in themselves an order of beauty which 
elicits a larger and yet larger measure of admiration the more it is examined 
and understood. As I said at the outset of these papers, it is not my purpose to 
institute or even invite comparison. Everything in the world of flowers is so beauti¬ 
ful, and so worthy of admiration in its own domain, that nothing can be put aside 
as insignificant; but I am sure of this, that whoever comes to the culture and 
study of the Carnation and Picotee with a worthy purpose, will find in these 
flowers beauty of such an order as cannot but provoke his highest admiration, 
and a profound thankfulness to that Creator who has granted to His creature 
the power to call forth such beauty from the “obscurity” in which He had 
hidden it. 
In the beauty of their /orm, in the completeness of the unity of their several 
parts, and in the extent of their variety^ they surpass all that could have been 
anticipated by the best-informed and farthest-seeing of the earlier cultivators, and 
even yet the limit of improvement has not been reached. Gifted with these 
attributes and possessing so much that is latent in beauty, it is natural that the 
Carnation and Picotee should offer a field for the work of the dresser (who must 
be, if he be worthy of the name, an artist, both in touch, and in the keen, discri¬ 
minating power of the eye), which he will seek to fill, and from which he will 
evolve a beauty previously hidden to the uninstructed, but “ inherent and of the 
flower.” Nor need any one assume that this art of “ Dressing ” may be abused. 
The work of the dresser is as clearly defined and as well understood as are the 
“ points ” or “ properties ” which constitute excellence in the flower. The floral 
canon expressly declares, “ There must be nothing extraneous introduced into the 
flower, neither petal, nor pellet, nor any such thing.” “ Deformity may be re¬ 
moved (as with a misplaced tooth, a cross in the eye, or other deformity in a 
child), but whatever additional contrast, harmony, variety, or grace the art of the 
dresser may confer, it must be inherent, and of the flower.” 
The practice of “ dressing Carnations for exhibition ” is not new. Hogg, in 
his treatise, published some fifty years ago, says :—“ One Christopher Nunn, of 
Enfield, Middlesex, a noted florist in his day, was eminent for his skill and 
dexterity in dressing Pinks and Carnations for prize exhibitions; some will even 
tell you that Kit was the father of the art. Upon such occasions he had as 
many applications to dress flowers as he had to dress wigs, for he was a barber 
and friseur by trade, and could both shave and lay a Carnation with the greatest 
nicety. The novices of that day, who, being unacquainted with his secret art, trusted 
to Dame Nature to open, expand, and perfect their flowers, were no match for 
Nunn,/or he began ichere she left off, and perfected lohat she had left imperfect. 
His arrangement and disposition of the petals were admirable.” 
But though the practice of dressing the Carnation and Picotee is not new—it 
may be traced back for about three-fourths of a century—it is quite sufiiciently 
new for us to determine whether its influence in the cultivation of the flowers 
has been “ pernicious,” and therefore reprehensible. Two modes of determining 
K 2 
