THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
.•HO 
| July 25.] 
to the tie of each division; yet there are some which 
scarcely require any assistance, and this is a very 
estimable quality. 
10. Decided superiority of perfume should obtain the 
prize when competing flowers are in other respects of 
balanced merit. 
PROPERTIES OF THE PTCOTEE. 
The characteristics of good form are the same as for 
the Carnation, hut with regard to colour, 
1. It should be clear, distinct, confined exclusively 
, to the edge of the petals, of equal breadth and uniform 
[ colour on each, and not running down (called sometimes 
feathering or barring), neither should the white ground 
run through the coloured border to the edge of any one 
j of the petals. 
2. The ground must he pure white, without the 
slightest spot. : i ; 
DISQUALIFICATIONS OF A CARNATION OR P1C0TEE. 
1. If there he any petal dead or mutilated. 
2. If there he any one petal in which there is no 
colour. 
If there he any one petal in which there is no 
white. 
4. If a pod be split down to the sub-calyx. 
5. If a guard petal he badly split. 
0. Notched edges are glaring faults, for which no 
excellence in other respects compensates. 
* This rule renders the name, still retained by Florists, inappropriate, 
j for Picote is the French for spotted, 
i 
THE ERUIT-G ARDEN. 
The Pine-Apple on the Hamiltonian Plan. —A few 
remarks were offered at page 93 on this head, and in 
order to enable our amateur friends to comprehend the 
real bearing of the subject, a few more will not he 
deemed out of place at this period. In order to under¬ 
stand the subject in Mr. Hamilton’s own way, we have 
trespassed on his kindness by carrying on a correspon¬ 
dence with him, for some time, about the pine affair, 
and some extracts from his letters will, doubtless, not he 
considered altogether wide in the present remarks. 
In the first place we are reminded by Mr. H., that in 
our anxiety to render pine culture more easy the re¬ 
marks offered at page 93, as connected with the principle 
of shading, are somewhat incautious, and the only 
points from which he can dissent. He would have 
those remarks qualified, by observing, that whatever 
modification of principles becomes necessary through 
expediency it must ever be borne in mind that, as a 
general maxim, the pine requires all the light which 
our northern skies afford. Exceptions of course will 
occur; plants may have been disturbed at the root, 
intense sunshine may occur for many days continuously, 
together with other matters, and these, of course, at in¬ 
tervals may cause the cultivator to diverge from what 
may be considered first principles; still the judicious 
pine grower will hasten back to the main points as soon 
as he has attained his object. 
Now, as a preliminary remark, it must be well under 
stood in the outset, that the distinguishing feature of 
the Hamiltonian system is the fruiting suckers on the 
old stool, whether planted out or in pots, for a series of 
years. Of course in dealing with this system as applied 
to the wants of the amateur, we do not wish it to be 
understood that the advice is intended to apply to pines 
intended for exhibition, but more as applied to the 
purposes of a regular supply to an ordinary family. If 
we understand our position aright, the main points to 
be dealt with are, first, to render their culture simple 
by stripping away everything of an extraneous character 
or involving much labour; and, secondly, to make them 
a profitable crojL economy of labour being one of the 
chief essentials of the latter. It will, nevertheless, be 
found that when Hamilton’s principles of pine culture 
are fully carried out, little if any sacrifice in point of 
size will he made; this, however, will become manifest 
to the tyro as he proceeds. 
Not every one who atempts to carry out this system 
will he able to command a tank-heated chamber as a 
source of bottom heat. It would be very easy to say, 
you must have a bottom warmth of this character, and 
who will dispute the propriety of such a course ? We 
wish, however, so to shape our advice as that persons 
of very moderate incomes shall not he deterred from 
adding a pine to their dessert through a fear of not 
being able to produce fruit equal to noble dukes or 
marquises. Under such circumstances, then, it is well 
to know that pine stools in pots, pluuged, may remain 
undisturbed for several years without submitting to that 
imperious dictum of our knights of the prescriptive 
order:—“they must he taken up and repotted in order 
to renew the bottom-heat.” 
In order to be well assured on this poiut, we must beg 
leave to make extracts from letters from our worthy 
friend, Mr. Hamilton, to whom we popped the question 
for the sake of a thorough satisfaction in the affair; for 
it must he understood that Mr. H. has been such an 
enthusiast in pine culture, and has met with such 
success, that he has the whole matter (to use a homely 
sayiug) at his finger’s ends. I addressed six queries to 
him a week or two since, on points closely connected 
with his mode of pine culture; I give his answers as 
they stand. 
