232 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
tlccember 14, 1889. 
FRoSJidURWf^. 
The Yellow-ground Carnation. 
Me. Rowan pays me a high and a highly valued com¬ 
pliment when, at p. 200 of your issue for November 
30 th, he speaks of my paper as “ well fitted to provoke 
thought.” That has ever been my highest ambition, 
and I accept the compliment unreservedly, because my 
friend at once proceeds to illustrate its truth. He was 
not, “on a first reading, fully prepared to recognise 
the truth of the position taken up with regard to the 
yellow-ground flowers”; but he gives the subject 
further consideration, and the broadening of his view is 
illustrated—its almost illimitable vista indicated—in 
one of the happiest and most apposite similies “ Friends 
in Council ” has ever known in its columns—the one 
“ note in music ” as the white, and the “ whole scale,” 
the full gamut, as the yellow. "Well, I commend, with 
all the earnestness I can command, these weighty words 
to the consideration of my fellow lovers of the flower. 
Let them read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, 
possess themselves of their full import, and they will 
avoid a whole labyrinth of error. They will not want 
to define the indefinable, to limit the limitless, or to 
split hairs about shades of colour as to which 
every tint, from palest hue to deepest tone, has equality 
of claim to favour, and every man may choose that 
most pleasing to his eye, his choice having this limit 
only—he may not impose it upon his neighbour. 
Then, my good old friend Mr. "VVardill is pleased to 
give me unstinted praise, and goes on to express a hope 
that all this “wealth of form, colour and variety” 
may lead “to other and more artistic forms of display,” 
giving “play to the higher faculties of grouping, com¬ 
bination and contrast of colour,” which at the present 
he holds to be “ very limited indeed.” Very heartily 
I echo his wish. No careful observer of the work of 
the floral world can avoid the conclusion that we are on 
the threshold of a great extension in the modes of 
display. I do not refer to the absurdities of our 
aesthetic critics, so admirably satirised by Mr. Shirley 
Hibberd. They will find their soon merited -oblivion. 
Far [otherwise are the utterances of men like Mr. 
Harman Payne, who, in his interesting Chrysanthemum 
echoes, given to us week by week in the Gardeners 
Magazine, says “ The method of staging cut flowers 
of Chrysanthemums at English shows is a barbarous, 
and consequently inartistic one. It is a relic of the old 
Dahlia shows, when it was of more importance in the 
eyes of the florists in the early part of the century to 
study the properties of each individual flower than to 
pay regard to the general artistic aspect of the exhi¬ 
bitions as a whole. At the time of day when many of 
the principal shows were held in the back parlours or 
club rooms of some local “pub,” it was of little moment 
to study anything beyond excellence of cultivation in 
the individual flower, but the time is not far distant 
when other considerations will have to be taken into 
account.” 
When first I knew the exhibition arena, in every 
society north of the Trent, a “ pan ” of Carnations was 
composed of seven flowers, one flower of each then 
accepted class—that is, two bizarres, scarlet and 
crimson ; three flakes, purple, scarlet, and rose, with 
two edged flowers, red and purple, as Picotees. Then 
came a great innovation, the edged flowers were extended 
to six—red and purple and rose—these again being 
separated into light and heavy edge. But the “pan ” 
was stringently required to have one of each class. No 
more certain way of compelling inferiority to be 
regarded with complacency could have been devised, 
and exhibitors accustomed to the system felt none of 
the degradation involved in the production of inferior 
flowers, so long as they were allowed to win. An ex¬ 
tended system of single blooms in classes, admitting 
one variety to win once only in its class, kept alive not 
merely numbers of inferior flowers on the plea “ they 
must come in,” but led to wholesale simulation, utterly 
destructive of all moral sense. It is needless to say, 
artistic perception, the sense of beauty, the “joy for 
ever” radiant in the flower had little recognition, 
and in many cases the exhibitions, got up in the same 
spirit which appears to rule certain gate-money ventures 
of the present day, were merely opportunities for the 
successful jockeyship of A and B and C at the expense 
of D and E and F. 
Those things have passed away, and if we have 
attained to no great heights, we have, at least, opened 
the door to a sense of proportion, of colour, harmony, 
contrast and combination. But there is a large world 
of lovers of flowers outside of exhibitions, and florists 
will be little worthy of their name if they fail to note 
their opportunity. Domestic decoration—the adorn¬ 
ment of the room, the table, the bright welcome to the 
assembly of friends—offers a wide field, and the sooner 
it is begun to be filled the better. Another day, if 
strength be given me, I will try to show in some 
detail how this may be begun. 
December 7th .—So much I had written before the 
appearance of Mr. Dean’s paper in this day’s issue. 
Let me make myself clear as to my respected friend’s 
paper of August 24th. I thought it was a report and 
a review of certain utterances on August 1st, rather than 
the expression of a personal opinion. "What he now says 
sustains that inference. But my friend says he did not 
anticipate his remarks would have called forth such a 
strong remonstrance from me. Well, my friend is an 
able man ; he can appreciate reason and measure 
argument. Now, I ask him, with that note of emphatic 
instruction to the judges, quoted in the second column 
of p. 184, italicised and staring him and other friends 
who sustained the opinion so blankly in the face, 
could he pretend to think the case for classification 
was complete without dealing with it and demon¬ 
strating its inutility ? Surely it was worthy of some 
little notice, and its author might have been asked to 
justify its existence before opinion so directly traver¬ 
sing its spirit was launched upon the floral world. 
Let me not be misunderstood, I do not object to the 
expression of opinion ; that is essential to the healthy 
life of floriculture. I object only to superficial opinion, 
and when we get opinion from a man of my friend’s 
ability, it should be many sided. 
My friend now adopts and reiterates the opinion that 
classification is needed, that it is a’great and important 
task, that it will have to be done some day, and the 
sooner it is taken in hand the easier will be the work. 
But he does not know to whom it should be com¬ 
mitted, and beyond some general remarks, he offers us 
indeed little material to go upon. I will endeavour to 
deal with such as he gives. In his closing paragraph, 
he says he writes mainly from the point of view of the 
exhibitor, and he has no considerations of self interest. 
That is apparent—his disinterestedness is beyond 
question. I deal only with the policy. Writing from 
the point of view of the exhibitor (of the white-ground 
class, observe), he thinks bizarres should be bizarres ; 
flakes, flakes; picotees, picotees; and he asks, “If 
we separate what Mr. Dodwell calls the picoteed 
Carnations from the bizarre and flaked varieties, 
why should we not do so in the case of the rapidly- 
increasing yellow grounds!” Well, for a very 
simple, but all-sufficient reason—the flowers do not 
exist. There is neither bizarre nor flake amongst 
the yellow grounds which could survive the ordeal 
applied, and most properly applied, to those sections 
in the white grounds. White-ground flakes are re¬ 
quired to have colour in every petal or suffer disquali¬ 
fication. No yellow ground at present known to me 
could bear such a test. In bizarres we have no flower 
with longitudinal markings ; such as exist have the 
colour on the edges. They would have to go with the 
curvilinear-marked flowers—the conventional Picotee 
of the day—and for that, such is the breadth of 
the present classification, forsooth, there is no class. 
Can it be needed. I should say more ? The 
only effect of the classification suggested wmuld be, in 
my opinion, to create a certain number of pegs upon 
which to hang more prizes—to keep a number, more 
or less, of inferior varieties in cultivation because of 
their possession, or approximate possession, of certain 
points required for such prizes, and instead of a sense 
of beauty, to instil in the exhibitor a lust of greed. I 
can be no party to such a procedure. Prize hunting 
needs restraint rather than stimulus. 
Such classification as is necessary will proclaim itself ; 
the seifs of all shades and tints, whether golden, yellow, 
apricot, warm orange, amber, or others up to sulphur, 
primrose and pale straw, will fall naturally, as Mr. 
Rowan says, with the other “unicoloured” flowers, and 
a yet larger number into the comprehensive section, 
the “ fancies.” For the rest let us wait. 
Mr. Horner, in the notice he was good enough to 
take of my little book, wrote:—“What constitutes 
excellence is well known among florists, and is here 
faithfully laid down. What shall be the super¬ 
excellence of the future, of this alone we present 
labourers may not write. That will ever remain an 
unfinished tale of any florist flower—a story without an 
end, so long as there shall be florists, who in their day, 
will lead their flowers on, and make record of advances 
gained. ” Day by day, as the sands pass, that super¬ 
excellence is being surely, if slowly, unfolded to our 
gaze. Let us make sure of its form and feature, its 
every line, before we begin to discuss its parts. It is 
the mistake of many, perhaps of most florists, to think 
of excellence as embodied in some more or less gifted 
variety, and thus they flounder in a bog of error, for¬ 
getful that the ideal alone is permanent. But that 
ideal is no creature of the imagination. It rests upon 
immutable law, ever open to the reverent student, and 
leading through every successive step always to higher 
and nobler things. 
I have been pained to find myself so much in conflict 
with my friend in opinion, and if the issue rested upon 
opinion only, the time and words involved in the dis¬ 
cussion would have been simple waste ; but that is not 
the case. We have fact on which to found opinion, so 
if my friend can show that in the yellow grounds we 
have veritably flakes and bizarres that can be brought 
into line and rank, and for the elevation of floriculture 
tied and bound in the cords of classification, he will 
have demonstrated to me that that I have been resting 
upon as experience, has been mere illusion, and I 
must bow my head as the vanquished ; but if he cannot 
do so—and surely if I am an entity, have life and 
sense, he cannot—then he must accept the inevitable. 
But let him not be troubled—he has not written in vain. 
He has done good yeoman service to floriculture and to 
his fellows in making it clear that before discussing 
any subject it is needful to know it in all its aspects. 
We must see the shield on both its sides.— E. S. 
Dodwell, Stanley Road, Oxford. 
Auriculas. 
Whatever we may say or do in the matter of autumnal 
blooming, the one thing certain is that the Auricula 
will take no notice of it. Times and ways of re-potting 
have simply nothing to do with it, although the 
idea is prepossessing, and a very inviting jump 
to take at a conclusion. It is an attractive theory 
that by late re-potting the plant must needs sustain a 
wholesome check, or take a later start, which shall tide it 
over the temptations of the autumn before it has the 
strength, not the weakness, to yield to them. 
However, by one inborn habit, nothing at all out of 
the common, the Auricula dashes through all the pos¬ 
sible poetry of an autumn-tide, vernal with spring 
flowers; and it leaves an “unusual mildness of the 
season,” with nothing remarkable about it except the 
weather. In fact, there would be no such thing as a 
wintry autumn if the only test of it were to be the total 
absence of “ flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la !” 
This is, in one respect, a curious habit, in that these 
autumnal blossoms cannot hope to progress to the 
natural consummation of perfecting seed, and so it may 
seem a lack of domestic economy in the plant. 
But let us be fanciful a moment, if we cannot be 
poetical, and imagine that, in the beauty of a serene 
and balmy autumn, these spring flowers take brief 
holiday at a leisure time, and cast aside the cares of life 
for the pleasures of it. 
Perhaps it may partly be in the spirit of this fancy 
that I allow a few Auriculas to flower in the autumn, 
but it is not all mere sentiment. 
Maiden seedlings may certainly do so for the sake of 
weeding out varieties with petals of flimsy texture, and 
thin or narrow paste. At this earlier stage also may 
the “pin eye” go its way, with its hard and blank 
expression, lifeless in comparison with the fulness and 
beauty of the ‘ ‘ mossy ” eye, with golden anthers that 
are, in effect, half eyelashes as well as eye. 
Still, judgment should be cautious in the autumn, 
and given against only great and radical faults; 
for it may be that a seedling self, now rough and 
notched in petal, may possibly become smooth and rose¬ 
leaved in the spring. The chance is not altogether 
great, but it is there. Heroine’s first flower came one 
autumn, but it was smooth and round even then, 
whilst with other seedling seifs it has not been so. In 
edged seedlings, too, a hope as slender may suffice to 
spare a plant till spring, if properties of the tube and 
paste are good, and only the proportions of edge and 
body colour wild. Till such time, too, I would spare 
even a pointed petal, though there is but a faint hope 
for that. 
These faults are only no worse than some of our best 
Auriculas can commit when flowering out of due season, 
and there is a pow'er in a maiden seedling, possessing, 
probably, more abundant roots than it will ever have 
a^ain, that will cause a few autumnal flowers to be no 
appreciative strain upon its store of strength. 
Again, some old varieties, given to mistake one 
equinox for the other, may be allowed to flower in the 
autumn if they like, for even if prevented, they will 
never bloom satisfactorily next spring. So, for instance, 
if Colonel Taylor desires to flower in the autumn, I let 
