: OCTOBER. 3 289 
PINKS AND PICOTEES. 
(Poate 169). 
Iv is not for the mere purpose of alliteration that I have put 
these together, or that one of each has been selected for the 
illustration of this month. They are approaching one another 
so rapidly at any rate in size that I think ere long one will be 
shown quite as large as the other. Anyone who saw the 
blooms of the former at the National Rose Show would be 
willing to agree in the likelihood of this. When we look 
back some twenty years, and remember what Pinks were then, 
and see what they are now, we may well wonder at the marvel- 
lous progress they have made. At that time jagged edges, 
small flowers, or else great confused things, more like mops 
than anything else, were in favour in north and south. Deadly 
feuds existed between the favourers of each party; but latterly 
flowers have been introduced which bid fair to meet with 
admirers in all parts of the kingdom; still, amongst the small 
erowers of the north, not only have the thin flowers a place in 
their affections, but black and whites are still shown—a class 
utterly unknown in the south, in which the edge is entirely 
wanting, and only the centre of the flower is coloured. ‘To 
the great change that has been thus produced in this exceed- 
ingly pretty and sweet flower, we are mainly indebted to the 
indefatigable perseverance and skilful hybridising of that 
veteran florist, Dr. Maclean of Colchester. A reference to 
any list of Pinks grown for sale will show how largely his 
flowers are in-cultivation, apd how impossible it is to grow a 
collection without a considerable number of his being in it ; 
and amongst the many that he has raised, including such kinds 
as John Ball, Charles Turner, &c., &c., BEAuTIFUL bids fair 
to take a foremost place. It is an exceedingly chaste flower, 
perfectly rose leaved, with a good broad belt of colour on each 
petal, not over large, and no way confused in the arrangement 
of its petals; it is, moreover, an excellent “doer,” grows well, 
and increases rapidly. Some kinds throw up so many flowering 
stems that it is often impossible to get the increase one wants 
—not so with this variety. Mr. Turner has also himself added ~ 
some very valuable kinds to the lists, and is a most extensive 
erower of them, as I suppose everybody pretty well knows, but 
not perhaps to the real extent of his operations. I saw this 
day over 20,000 plants bedded out in stock beds, to grow on 
there until the early part of October, unless indeed orders do 
not, which they are very likely to do, materially thin them 
before that. My friend “Iota” too is in the field as a raiser 
of seedlings; and from a batch of blooms which I saw of his 
VOL. XIV., NO, CLIV. U 
