220 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ October, 
flowers. Fern-fronds are usually put along with all kinds of flowers, and we 
even see the exhibitor of cut roses making a carpet of Maidenhair Fern-fronds 
to enhance the effect. The button-hole artist bores a hole in a Pelargonium- 
, leaf, and there inserts the flower. In dressing whiting for table, the tail of the 
fish is drawn through the gills, and this seems to have been the model for 
building the button-hole nosegay, reminding one of the Irish phrase that “ every 
herring should hang by its own head.” 
Pelargoniums, with entire leaves, are not improved by being garnished with 
pinnate leaves, for the leaf gives bulk and body to the flower, and the flower 
gives soul or spirit to the leaf, but they are both neatly and nicely fitted to go 
together. A Camellia-bloom with a couple of leaves will illustrate my meaning 
of a button-hole nosegay, and a hole bored in the leaf of a Zonal Pelargonium, 
and the opening filled in with a Eose-bud or a tuft of Tom-Thumb flowers, will 
give a good idea of what such ought not to be. The Eose can do its work 
single-handed ; like “ good wine, it wants no bush,” to court admirers, and its 
foliage, no less than its flowers, gives the tone to decorations of all kinds, for 
whether in the epergne, or on the stand in the Exhibition tent, in the bridal 
bouquet, or last, but not least, adorning the hair of some bewitching belle, the 
Eose is ever sweet and fair, setting the fashion, as becomes the Queen of Flowers. 
—Alexander Forsyth, Salford. , 
THE‘CARNATION AND PICOTEE. 
Chapter X.— Work for October—What Shall we Grow ? 
have come now to foundation-work, and on its well or ill-doing will 
mainly rest success or failure for another year. Every plant of every 
variety proposed to be grown for the next season’s bloom should be 
obtained, if required to be obtained, and firmly established in its winter’s 
quarters during this month. One plant properly established now will give results 
worth ten got-in in mid-winter or spring. 
Said my friend Mr. Eobert Lord to me last July, personifying the Carnation 
with the pleasant power of a quaint and glowing imagination,—“ To me the Carna¬ 
tion seems to say, ‘ Do what you will with me in autumn (late September and 
October), and I am your willing servitor, your most obedient and docile servant; 
send me from the soft air of the South to the sharp atmosphere of the North, and 
I complain not; from the breezy hill-side to the close air of the sweltering valley, 
and I murmur not. Subject me to the confinement of long journeys and 
indifferent packing, to disrooting, change of soil, and even to crushed foliage, 
and I retrieve the disaster and recover the injury with my winter’s sleep. But 
woe to the wight who subjects me to change after I have doffed my winter’s 
night-cap, or trespasses on my rights in spring. Then I brook no injury, permit 
no liberties with impunity. Then a broken leaf or crushed rootlet is a mortal 
injury, and involves the penalty of a mortal offence.’” 
I cannot too strongly emphasise the lesson of my fnend’s remarks. Therefore 
