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THE PROPERTIES OF THE PICOTEE. 
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Like Alfred, it is a free grower, and constant, but quite of a different shade of colour. How 
far our colourers may succeed in giving the exact tint, we cannot at present tell; so slight a 
marking it is very difficult to get sufficiently dense in its outline. 
Culture. —The following hints on the potting of Carnations and Picotees are obligingly 
communicated by a well-known amateur at Woolwich, and indicate the practice of the best 
growers in that neighbourhood :— 
“ The layers of Carnations and Picotees should be taken off as soon as they begin to fibre, and 
either potted or planted in a nursery bed until October, in either case shutting them close in a 
frame until they have got hold. If they are potted, it may be necessary, should they fill the first 
pots with roots, to repot in October; the practice will, however, be found to repay the extra 
trouble. Prune them to a clean stem, so that the lower pair of leaves may stand at least half an 
inch above the surface, taking out all laterals of an inch long and over, many of which will, 
from this time to the beginning of October, strike ; and though some will bloom, the majority 
will make those much coveted plants, which, not having strength to bloom next season, will 
form extraordinary fine and sound stock for the succeeding year, such as we term maiden 
plants. These laterals, if left on the plant, do it no good, and, if buried at all, are of infinite 
damage to it by engendering canker. They are, moreover, usually removed and rejected 
at the spring potting, as likely to spindle for bloom, and so distress the leading blooms. 
It is, therefore, surely best to take them off now, when they may be made stock of, rather 
than leave them on to the injury of the parent, and to waste them in the spring. 
“ This pruning must not be done carelessly by tearing off the leaves, which wounds the 
stem and causes decay, but by cutting nearly through the midrib at each of the joints, and so 
detaching them by a gentle twist to the right and left. 
“ This plan has been found by the growers here to tend greatly to the soundness of the 
stock; and when it is considered that it is no more than an imitation of the natural growth of 
the seedling plants, which (as well as plants raised from pipings or cuttings) always form 
a clean stem, it is but rational to suppose that such a form of plant must be best. 
“ As to the compost used for the winter potting, it is usually recommended to be pure 
loam, which, no doubt, will answer well for naturally grown plants (such as we usually 
receive from the northern growers); but for plants the parents of which have been excited 
by every available means to excessive growth, I question the correctness of so sudden a 
change; at all events, we have used with success a mixture of the compost in which we 
bloomed our plants the preceding year (which will consequently have had the benefit of a 
winter’s frost and a summer’s sun), with a good portion of turfy loam, avoiding by all means 
the use of a sieve; sinrply well breaking and mixing it with a spade. 
“In detaching the layers, cut off the stem of the layer to the corresponding half of the 
joint which is rooted, and that will, before autumn, also root, thus forming a plant almost 
equal in soundness to one raised from a cutting.”—N. 
THE PROPERTIES OF THE PICOTEE. 
The Properties of form are similar to those of the Carnation, to be given hereafter; but the distinc¬ 
tion between Carnations and Picotees is, that the colour of the former is disposed in unequal stripes, 
going from the centre to the outer edges, and that of the Picotees is disposed on the outer edges of the 
petals, and radiates inwards, and the more uniform this is disposed the better. 
Whether it be very deeply feathered at the edge, like the pattern on the edge of a heavy feathered 
Tulip, or an even stripe not wider than the thickness of the petal, all round the edge, or something 
between, it is only necessary that it be uniform ; that none of the feathery marks have a break, and 
that there shall be as much width of white as colour seen on the petal at the deepest part of the feather. 
It is not necessary that the feather be the same width all the way round, but every stripe which does 
not reach the edge of the petal is a blemish. 
DISQUALIFICATIONS OF BLOOMS. 
1. If there be any petal dead or mutilated. 
2. If there be any one petal in which there is no colour. 
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