BRARY OF CONGRESS. ^ Shelf ^R2i.LZ Z UNITED STATES OF AMERIOA. AMEvRICAN CjlRNilTION CULTURE, {^ianthus CaryophvUiis Semperjlorens.) ITS CLASSIFICATION, HISTORY, PROPAOATION, VARIETIES, CARE, CULTURE. ETC. L. L. HAMBORN, Ex-EoiTOR OF Ohio Journal of F lori-Culture, FLOt?iST, Etc- "Flowers are the alphabet of Angels, by which they write on hill and dale nnysterious things." ALLIANCE, OHIO, 1892. '6>' Entered accordinj? to the Act of Congress, IS87 and 1892, by — LORA L. L\MBORN,— In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D, C. THE THIRD EDITION OE o^^mericau (Laraatioii (Lulliire, Is fjespectfully Inscribed to tj H. E. CHITTY, OF PATERSON, N. J., /f Successful Garqatioq Grower, a lecidiqg coqtributor to tt]e Garqatioq Literature of the times, aqd a friend of t/]e auttjor's efforts to make this work tf]orougl] aqd practical in its cl]araater. %tti^xx^ttt^itxxtt ^ ^^^HE grace of its form, its wide range of colors, added to (WK its exhilarating fragrance, has brought the Carnation ^^^ Pink into such commercial importance, that it is estimated 500,000,000 of its bloom are annually sold in America. In the ratio that public attention is concentrated upon any given species of plant, will the number of its varieties increase, and the best methods be adopted to secure it in the greatest perfection. Out of the multiplicity of kinds, critical public opinion will sanction onl}" the "survival of the fittest kinds." The Car^'ophyllus branch of the Dianthus family of plants is no\y passing through this active phase of its history. There are about 10,000 Florists in America handling from a few, up to 50,000 Carnation plants annually: there are about 200 named varieties of Carnations which are, or recently have been, candidates for public favor. There has been great confusion as to kinds, and as to treat- ment. In 1886 we published the first work on this genus of plants, confining our labor chiefly to ''Bianilms Coryo- pliyllus SemperfIore?is," and so far as this species Tvas con- cerned, attempted to bring some order out of chaos; our efforts were appreciated, in two 3-ears the edition was exhausted and the demand for the work continued. We present the work again, to which is added a list of new and improved kinds, and four additional years of the cultural experience INTHODrCTION. of American Carnation growers, bringing the work up fully abreast with all the wisdom on this subject to 1890. Though not a matter of great importance, but to round into completeness the history of this plant we hfve given the lists of kinds that have claimed public attention in America, and credited them with the names of the parties with whom they originated. The coming student of Floral History may find in this work some facts rescued from the wasting iiand of time. The amateur cultivator of Carnations will find a certain guide for his efforts. The inexperienced Florist will see plain directions to secure success. Experienced Cultivators may find suificient of interest and profit, to pay them for their perusal of its pages. L. L. Lamborx. GOjVTFciVTS. CHAPTER 1. PAGE Commercial Importance of Carnations — Value of the cut- Flowers — Statement of John Thorpe — Number of Florists in America — Area of Surface Covered with Glass — Capital Invested 17 CHAPTER II. Carnations not Naturally Green-house Plants — Amateur Treat- ment of Carnations — The Mode That Insures Success — How to Make a Carnations Bed — How to Bed Them Out The Time to Procure the Plants — The Kinds to Pur- chase — Treatment for Summer Bloomiug — Treatment for Winter Blooming .: = .... 21 CHAPTER III. Origin of Ever Blooming Carnations — When — Where — By Whom, Jean Sisley's Statements — On Propagation — Temperature — Cultivation — Carnations Known to the Ancients 25 CHAPTER IV. Difference Between a Hybrid and a Cross — Specie — Genus — Order — Class — How to Hybridize and Cross — How to Select Parents — Gastner's Statements of Chances — Hybridizing and Crossing in the Animal Kingdom 29 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. I'AGE. Botanical Classification of Carnations — Parents of Existing Kinds — D. Barbatus — D. Plumaris — D. Chinesus — D. Caryophyllus — The Esteem in Which These Plants Were Held by the A ncients — Niiml)er of Species — Na- tivity — Origin of the Word Dianthus — How to Propa- gate 'S'S CHAPTER VI. Nature's Method of Multiplication — The Florist's Method — The Time to Propagate Carnations — The Kind of Cuttings to obtain — The Sand — Temperature — John Henderson's Views — How to Avoid Decadence — Time Required for a Cutting to Root — Object of a Plant's Existence :)8 CHAPTER VII. Area of Leaf Surface of a Plant is the Measure of Moisture it Re- quires — The Moisture is Required by Carnations — Cause of Carnations Decaying at the Root — Bench Drainage — Pot Drainage — Difference Between Watering and Spray- ing — When to lift Carnations from the Open ground .... 40 CHAPTER VI I r. Routine of Carnation Culture for Cut Flowers — Rooting Cut- tings -- Hardening Off Cattings — Time for the Field Planting — Kind of Soil in the Field* — How to Plant in the Field — Cultivation in the Field — How to Lift ~ Soil on the Benches — Distance Apart on the Benches and in the Field — Treatment When Planted on the Benches — How to Carry Plants for Spring Sales in Pots — To Se- cure Early Out Door Bloom — How to Plant on the Benches 47 (•()>f TEXTS. 11 CHAPTER IX. PAGE. How to Pack Carnation Plants for Shipment — How to Ship Cuttings — How to Ship Rooted Cntting-s — How to Ship Carnation Flowers — The Proper Shipping Label — Ef- fect of Moisture on Carnation Flowers — Difference Be- tween a Matured and Immatured Carnation Flower 5.3 CHAPTER X. The Cause of Decadence of the Older Kinds of Carnations — How to Renew Native Vigor in Carnations — Individu'.;Jizing the Floral Business in America — The Natural and Arti- ficial Life of a Phint — Hereditary Weakness and Strength in Plants 61 CHAPTER XI. How to Grow Carnation Plants for Autumn, Winter and Spring Sales in Pots — How to Grow Large Attractive Plants — The Kinds Best Adapted to Pots — The Most Saleable Colors — The Different Sorts to Grow for Fall, Winter and Spring Sales 65 CHAPTER XII. Diseases of Carnations — Remeclies — Insects — Remedies— Root Fungus — Aphis — Red Spider — Carnation Twitttr — Brown Mould — J. Talbies' Statements Before the Society of American Florists at Philadelphia 67 CHAPTER XII 1. Cause of the Calyx Bursting in Carnations — The Ideal Carnations of the Future — Means Adopted by Na'ure to Prevent Bursting — Defective Description Given of Carnations — Difference Between Early and Late Bloomers — Difference B -twetn Crop and Continuous Blojmers Ty 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. PAGE Nature of the Physical Qualites of Carnations — Determined at the Moment the Seed is Fertilized — Early, Medium and Late Bloomers — Winter and Summer Bloomers — Dwarf, Medium and Tall Growers — Shy, Average and Profuse Bloomers — Lists of Superior Kinds 77 CHAPTER XV. The Blooming Qualities of Carnations Compared with Other Plants — Kind of a House Best Adapted to Growing' Carna- tions — How to obtain the Best Flowers and the Greatest Quantity — Relative Market Demand for Different Colors — The Kinds to Stake — The Different Branches of Carnation Grovang — The Average Price for Carnation Flowers — Profits of Carnation Growing 81 CHAPTER XV[. How to Grow Carnation Flowers the Year Round — The Varieties to Grow for a Succession of Bloom — Types of Classes — How to Make Late Kinds Bloom Early — Seedlings for Blooming 85 CHAPTER XVII. Artificial and Self Fecundation of Carnation Seed — The Time to Fertilize — The Time to Gather the Seed — The Time to Sow the Seed — Views of Edwin Lonsdale — Chas. T. Starr's System — The Pedigree of the Coming Good Kinds 89 CHAPTER XVIH. Chromatics — Nomenclature in Chemistry, Music and in the Science of Colors — Carnations with a Solid Color — Shaded — Flaked — Penciled — Mottled — Dotted — A New and Proper Classification of Carnations, Based on Habit of Plants and Their Color 94 CoisTENTS. 13 CHAPTP]R XIX. i'A(;e. Kinds of Carna'ioiis Grown for the Different Markets of the United States — - Flower Merchants — Commission Men — Difference in the Price of Flowers, Wholesale and Re- tail — Home of the Dianthus Order of Plants — The Car- nation Growing Belt or Europe and America -- Effect of the Temperate Zone on Tropical Plants. 98 CHAPTER XX. Correspondence — John Henderson -- Edwin Lonsdale - — Nauz & Neuner — Deny Zirngiebel — Mrs. E. L. G. Campbell — C. W. Re(d -— Hill & Co. — Jordon Floral Co. — W. K. Harris — Chas. T. Starr — Walter Coles — Robert Craig— W. C. Wilson — R. S. Brown i^^ Son — Peter Henderson — Miller & Hunt — Thomas Seal — B. A. Elliott & Co 105 CHAPTER XXI. Hardy Scotch Pinks — Difference Between Pinks and Carnations — Value of Pinks - Their Beauty and Usefulness — New and Improved Kinds — Mode of Propagating Pinks — Kinds used for Forcing — Names — De scription -- Cata- logue List -- Best Kinds Cultiv^ated in Europe and Amer- ica — Chas. T. Starr on Hardy Pinks Ill CHAPTER XX 11. Tomatoes in Connection with Bench Carnation by Wm. Swayne --Advantage to the Carnations -- Time to Sow the To- mato Seed -- How to Plant Them on the Benches -- How to Feitilize -- How to Prune the Vines -- Time They Be- gin to Ripen Their Fruit — Profits on Tomatoes -- Carna- tions Bloom Three Weeks Longer with Tomatoes 119 M CONTENTS CHA.PTEKXX1I1. Nearly 200 Carnations Catalogued, Classified and Described — Divided into 'Old/ 'New' and "Scarce" Kinds -- Thirty New and Valuable Sorts that will Appear in 1887 and 1888 — Synonyms of Existing Kinds — Parents of American Sorts — English and European Varieties — CarnaLions in California — Names of Persons with whom the Varieties Originated — Dr. Denney of England 128 CHAPTER XXIV. Complete Catalogue of White — S<'arlet — Pink ~ Crimson — Yellow — White-variegated — And Yellow -variegated Cksses of Carnations — - Epilogue to First Edition 133 CHAPTER XXV. Recent Improvement in Carnation Culture on size of Field Grown Plants — Repetition of Carnation Crops on Same Ground — Temperature on the Benches -- Earlier Lifting -- Car- nations Without Balls of Earth — Depth of Soil on Benches — Hot Water and Steam Heating -- List of New Kinds. . . 158 CHAPTER XXVI. Origin of Plant Life — Cell Germ — Growth by Cells -- Circula- tion in Plants — Respiration of Plants — Food of Plants — Biennial Plants 168 CHAPTERXXVll. The National Flower of the Republic — Its Requirements — Qualifications fully met by Dianthus — Why it Should be chosen 179 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Cause and Cure of the Versatile Habits of Carna- tions—Solid Beds vs. Raised Benches for Carnations — Tables of the productiveness of Carnation bloom — Registered list of new Carnations 183 CARNATION CL'LTURK. 15 Botqiliccil rc\±<\s of q ec[±<^^^\io^ Flo^lei^ Fe(/u/ic/e,~Stem that bears the flower. Jieceptacie,—Vi:peY end of the Peduncle. Calyx,— Cup that surrounds the Corolla. Bmcts,Supports arond the base of the Calyx. Corolla,— The whole of the blossom. Petals,- A leaf of the blossom. /Stame/is,—M'd\e organs in Centre of blossom. :^ /I the fs,— The enlarged ends of the Stamens. Pollen,— The fertilizing dust on the Anthers. Filaments, — Stems of the Stamens. Pestil, — Female organs in centre of blossom. Stigma, — Enlarged end of the Pestil. Sygle, — Stem of the Stigma. Ovary, — Contains the unripe seed. " Ovules, — The unripe seed. Pericarp, — Seed vessel containing ripe seed. Valves, — Parts, or sections of the Pericarp. Seed, — Rudiments of a new plant. TlfE GKjVTUl^Y, The Magnitude Of Carnation Culture. CHAPTER I. " 'Tis my faith that every flower enjoys tlie air it breathes." ^.HERE are two classes of persons who will ;g'' read these pages ; one who is a disinterest- ed lover of flowers, and delights to possess PSiS''' and cultivate the most beautiful, symmetri- cal, fragrant and enduring flower that blooms. The other class is less sentimental. Their prac- tical enquiry is, what varieties of Carnations will afford the most saleable bloom, and yield the most flowers for the market? What treatment of the Carnation plant will secure the most profitable results ? How can I get my Carnation plants in pots, in the best condition for sale ? How can I hybridize, save the seed and secure my chances of obtaining novel and improved varieties, &c. ? These and many other questions of a practical nature, bearing on the cultivation of the Carnation, will, it is hoped, be fully ancLclearly set forth in the following pages. iH CARNATION CULTURE, The capital and labor invested in Carnation cul- ture has become so great that some authority on the proper routine of the business has become impera- tive. As regards the magnitude of this industry, I have no more reliable statistics at hand than those given by John Thorp, President of the Society of American Florists, at Cincinnati, in August 1885, he says : "There are not less than eight-thousand Florists engaged in the business, either growing plants, or raising cut-flowers for sale. Allowing four hundred feet of glass covered service to each Florist gives us a total of three million two hundred thousand square feet of glass, in other w^ords six hundred and thirty acres. Calculatinof that half of the Hass structures are used for growing plants, and one-third of the space is actually covered with them, and average the size of pots used at three inches in diameter, and allow- ing two crops each year, the number of plants would be about forty million. The remaining half of the glass structures are used for the purpose of growing cut-flowers ; the actual number produced is almost incredible. I can state, however, that during the past season, beginning with November and ending with April, nine large growers of roses sent into New York market, close upon four million of flowers, and when I state, this was not fifty per cent of roses sent to New York alone, the magnitude of Rose growing will be imagined. The roses grown arround Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Chicago, Washington and all CARNATION CULTURE. I9 Other places could not be less than twice as many as produced for New York market. This would bring up the number of cut roses produced during- the past season to twenty-four fnillion. It would be very safe to multiply the number of Carnation flowers produced in the same time from all sources, by at least five. This would give one hundred and twenty-five million, fabulous as it may seem, I feel that my calculations are rather under, than over the actual number placed on the market It would, moreover, be safe to state that at least one- fourth as many roses and carnations are annually raised by amateur gentlemen, which represents as much value as if thrown on the market and sold over the counter." According to the above statements, there were one hundred and sixty-five million Carnation flowers raised from Nov. i, 1885 to May i, 1886 under glass. Granting President Thorp's estimate to be cor- rect, it embraces but six months of the twelve. There are eight months in the year In which the market demand is about equally active, and the call for Carnation flowers is in nowise extinguished during any part of the year. The sale of flowers of this plant during the un- estimated six months would be half as much as dur- ing the six months estimated. If growers realized twelve dollars per thousand for the bloom, it would make an aggregate of three million of dollars per annum. 20 CARXATIOX CULTURE. This estimate is based on the sale of flowers alone, and does not include the sale of bloomine Carnation plants in pots, made annually b)' eight thousand Florists in this country. To this growing industry, which now aggregates over three million dollars, in which I have been a practical participant from its infancy, I give, in this work, much wisdom gathered from other growers, as well as my best experience and practice in suc- cessful Carnation Culture. CHAPTER II. rOPU LA R C A RXATI ON C T LTU RE, <^> desire in this chapter to clear up some popular ^Ak . errors, and make it plam to every-one, now ^J^r^ the\- can successiully otow tlie DiaiitJius, Pifii wh-ich is from two Greek words, signiiying the "Divine Flower." The Carnation is the most popular f.ower grown, if we ma}- except the Rose, and it is much easier managed than the Rose, with a very little care the success in growing Carnations is assured, this is far from the case with amateur management oi the Rose. It is the oTeatest mistake to think that Carna- tions can only be successfuly raised in a Green House-they are not naturally a Green House plant ; they are hardy at any temperature above zero, some few varieties are less hardy than others however. but the specie is a native of cold high latitudes. The plant roots better in a low temperature. They are easily forced, or comjpelled to yield their blocm out of their natural season, and their bloom being valuable, is the reai on why hundred ot acres of elass is devoted to forcino- Carnations bv heat into flowers. It is not because it is a tender Green House plant. 2 2 CARNATION CULTURE. The Carnation blooms freely out of doors dur- ing August, September and October, and would continue to do so for months, did not frost prevent. If in this latitude they are properly lifted and put in a six inch pot, they will with little care, bloom on the window sill till the following June. The greatest difficulty is that the atmosphere of the sitting room is too warm and dr)^ for them, but this is by no means fatal. Now suppose you try a few Carnations; you send for some young plants in the spring, say April or May, I mean young plants. It is the nature of the Carnation to live only two years. Large plants that have been carried in bloom through the winter, are more attractive, but worthless, haveing about lived their allotted time. The plants when received are small and will not make much show in a bed and you may feel dissatisfied. The Carnation bed is to be deeply dug up and enriched with well rotted manure, entirely free from standing water and of upland nature. As the plants are almost hardy, they may be put out in April or May. If they have been properly hardened off prior to being set out, a smart freeze will not injure them. Through summer they will push up flower stalks, which should be broken off within five inches of the ground, if the plants are designed for winter flowering; this conserves the vital forces of the plant for its blooming efforts in winter. If it is not designed to lift and pot them in the fall, this topping process should not be done. CAR NAT I ox CULTURE. 23 The little Carnation plants should be bedded out ten inches apart, each way. If the biennial nature of the Carnation plant was understood by the people, that is if they but knew it was the character of the plant to live and flourish through but two seasons, and that they must procure young plants every season, the com- plaint that they can not succeed well with the Carnadon would be ended, and the sale of this class of plants would be doubled. There is no dispute as to the wants of the people for this artistic flower, and there are no plants that bear transportation so well, or that are furnished by Florists at so small a cost to the purchaser. You are now cro'mcr to send for some small I'll Carnadon plants. You are troubled as to kmds and colors. Accept the classification of colors adopted in this work, which system is adopted in Zirngiebel's list, viz: Crimson, Scarlet, Pink, White, Yellow, White variegated and Yellow variegated. One dozen different Carnadons selected from these classes will comprise the most desirable shades of colors and markings. You can send for your plants to a firm a thousand miles away, they will arrive safe by mail or express and almost surely grow when they are put out, if planted on arrival, in small pots or in shallow boxes of soil, not over-watered, and protected from too much midday sun for a few days. They will then bear full exposure in moderate weather, after which they may be planted out where they are to remain all summer. 24 CARNATION CL'LTURE. Plants will become more bushy if cut back for a time, but their bloom will be retarded. If summer flowers are desired only, let the plants be tied to neat stakes as they grow^ and buds and flowers wdll soon appear. If the orrower w^ill be satisfied with later flow^ers, cut back the young plants until July ist or after, and thus have several stems instead of one, and each stem will develop nearly as many buds as the single stem. If desired mainly for winter bloom in the house, they may be cut back until August ist or after, and at the approach of frost carefully taken up and pot- ted in six-inch pots. These pots should have an inch of drainage in the bottom, to counteract the effects of to much water. Small pieces of pot- tery, brick or gravel answers well. After a few days shade, they may be placed in any situation in or about the house that is airy and sunny, and yet not exposed to cold winds. During the Winter they should not be placed in too vvarm a room, and the folia^-e should be often thoroughly sprinkled with cold w-ater. This care will prevent the ravages of the red spider, one of the enemies of this class of plants. The soil should not be kept too w^et at any time, but if sometimes a little dry, plants will not suffer. CHAPTER III. ORIGIN OF PERPETUAL CARNATIONS. ^jj^ N another chapter it will be explained how i "hybrids" and ''crosses" in Carnations are '^ obtained. This chapter has reference to the origin of the /fri-/ hybred perpetual Carna- tion, by whom produced, and where obtained. All of this I think is set at rest by that venera- ble and devoted lover of flowers, Jene Sisley, whose first double white Geranium (Jene Sisley) has spread his name as wide as floral literature is read. The temperature he indicates as proper, in which Carnation cuttings should be struck, is cer- tainly very much too high, but his personal knowledge of the origion of this class of plants establishes facts, which will grow in interest as time goes on. I quote entire a communication, written by him for, and published in the 14th No. of the American Florist. Sisley says: "In the ''Revue Horticole" of February last, a remarkable article was published on the present state of perpetual Carnations. The writer in the Revue asks:" "Where and how was the culture of the perpetual Carna- tion commenced ? Who is the Horticulturist and who first applied himself to it? then says: "We do not know." 2 6 CARNATION CULTURE. I think therefore it may interest American Hor- ticulturists and amateurs to be imformed of its history; which I pubHshed ten years ag"o in a paper which had not a wide circulation and in consequence I copy as follows: "According to several Horticultural writers, the Carnation was cultivated more than 2000 years ago. But we know no more of what was practiced in those times than in any other science, and as it is only since the beginning- of this century that the facts of nature have really been studied, and we can onh' relate what has lately been practiced. The perpetual Carnations have been created at Lyons. It was M. Dalmais, gardener to M. Lacene, a celebrated amateur; and founder of the first Horti- cultural society of that region, who obtained the first really constant blooming Carnation; about forty-six years ago. He sent it out in 1841. under the name of Atim, the production of artificial fecundation of a so called species; known by the vulgar name of Carnation of Mahon, or of St. Martin, the latter because it was blooming by the middle of November; fecundated by Carnation Bielson This first gain was successively fecundated by the Flemish Carnations, and about 1846 he obtained a great number of varieties of all colors. M. Schmitt a distinofuished Horticulturist of Lyon, followed M. Dalmais and obtained several fine varieties like Arc en ciel and Etolle Polaire, CARNATION CULTURE. 2/ which were cultivated for several years, but do not exist now, having been superceded by better varieties. In 1850 a disease having destroyed his collec- tion, M. Schmitt abandoned their culture. Soon after Alphonso Alegatiere, the well known propagator undertook the hybridization of Carna- tions, and in a short time obtained great success, dotted that series with a great many varieties, all particularly dwarf and obtained a very great improvement by creating those with stiff lower stems about 1866. We can thus say that i\legatiere has created a new species. He has also upset the old system of propaga- tion, that of layering, and has proved that propagation by cutdngs is the best and most reason- able method and produces the best plants; and thus justified my saying that layering is the infancy of the Horticultural Art. And he has demonstrated that nothing is easier than propagating Carnations by cuttings. The best time to strike them, is in January and February and the best mode is to put them in a bench of fine sand, in a span roof house, without bell glasses. The benches being heated underneath by hot water pipes to 60 or 70 degrees. The cutdngs strike root from three to five weeks. 28 CARNATION CULTURE. The sand must be kept moist and the cuttings syringed every day. They can be placed out in April or May, and will soon make fine plants to bloom in Autum. Jene Sisley, Feb. 1886. Monplaiser, Lyons, France. !l!^J^I!^l|<-j||i-^!lfeil0i,(pJ(^,Pi(^f-),,PG)i,(^ilPi|(;)i,^^ CHAPTER IV. HOW NEW VARIETIES OF CARNATIONS ARE OBTAINED. .^I^^EW varieties of Carnations are obtained by ^ hybridization and crossing. A cross is the f product of sexual fertilization between two ^^ $ Pinks of the same variety. ' D. Hcdazvigi and D. Lancinatus, are two varieties. The seeds of one fecundated with the pollen of the other, might germinate, grow, and blow a Pink different from ekher of its parents. This would be a cross. . A hybrid is the result of the sexual union ol male and female of different species. Dianthus Barbatus is one species', Dianthus Plumaris is another species of the gemis Dianthus order Digynia, class Decandria. The seeds of an individual member of one of the above species, fertilized with the pollen from a member of the other species, would produce a hybrid Pink; likely to difter from the type of its parents in the ratio that they differ from each other. As a rule, in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms, sexual unions takes place only between individuals of the same variety. It is by the play of this rule, or law, that vari- eties 2.x^. indefinitely maintained with unvarying char- acteristics. 30 CARNATION CULTURE. Crosshig in nature is not very common; hybri- dization is extremely rare. i\s a rule hybrids are not fertile. The progeny of the Horse and Ass, Sheep and Goat; Dog and Wolf; Caucasian and African, are sterile so far as reproducing themselves with themselves. But in a majority of cases, in both Kingdoms, the hybrid will breed with one of the original types back into that type. Nature revolts at hybridization, and refuses to perpetuate the mongrel race. Crossing is very common by the intervention of the Florist's art. He further circumvents nature by dexterously avoiding abortive sexual unions to perpetuate his choice hybrid, and indefinitely con- tinues and multiplies it by layers, grafts, and cuttings. But hybridization is a much more difficult accomplishment. Gaestner, who is very high authority, says that out of one thousand carefully conducted experiments fecundation was achieved in only two hundred and fifty-nine cases. In hybridizing, it is necessary to prevent the flower used as the mother, or seed bearer, from being fertilized with its own pollen. The operator is favored by the fact that the pollen retains its vitality for some time after it is removed from the flower which produced it. It is probable that with this, as with seeds, the duration of vitality varies in different species ; at all CARNATION CULTURE. 3 I events, It is known that some pollen will keep for weeks, and even months.. The flower selected as the seed bearer, should be the most vigorous plant and taken just as it is about to open, and before any insects can have visited it; the envelopes are carefully opened, or removed, and if a perfect flower, its still unopened stamens are cut away with a delicate pair of scissors, the foreign pollen applied to the stizma with a small brush and the flowers enclosed in a bag of gause to prevent the access of insects, which would probably bring the pollen of some other kind to interfere with the action of the strange pollen. It is by following the process I have recited that the different variedes of Carnations have been obtained. The operadon is delicate and the chances of obtaining a Carnation better than some existing varieties is less than one in a thousand. But this should not deter florists and amateurs from seeking to create new varieties of plants ot every kind. It is the most fascinating part of a florist's business to watch a properly fecundated seed from the tiny seed leaves to the mature plant. The developing bud has a center of interest that no other bud can have. Will the flower be double or single, large or small, white, red, yellow, purple? and a dozen other unknown possibilities existing to stim- ulate interest and curiosity, lies hidden within that calyx. 32 CARNATION CUI TL RE. O O o (U CO :3 o (D o ;-i O w CHAPTER V. BOTANICAL CLASSIFICATION OF CARNATIONS. DiauthUS. From dios, divino, and anthos, ii flower; in reference to the fragrance and the unrivaled neatness of the flowers. Linn. Decandria-Digynia. Nat. Ord. Caryophyllaceoe. |HE Carnation belongs to a class of plants whose family name is Caryophyllaceo: of the genus DiantJuis, order Digynia. class Decandria. The DiantJnts genus of plants includes annual and perennial herbs, with opposite, narrow, often rigid grass-like leaves, the flowers with their parts in fives; the long tubular calyx is five toothed at the apex, and bracked at the base. The five petals have very long slender stalks, or claws, stamens ten, styles two; the ovary ripen- ing as a one cell seed vessel; open at the apex by four valves and containing numerous seeds which are flat on the back, and of a blackish color. There are but few of this family which merits the attention of Florists. The books enumerate about 200 species; none of them natives of America except D. Repens, w^hich is found on the coast of Kotzebues Sound, and other high latitudes, D. Armeria and D, Prolifica, found in the Atlantic states are introduced weeds. 34 CARNATION CULTURE. A number of the genus are troublesome weeds, as Stelllaria Media, the common Chickweed, so well known and troublesome in gardens through the cooler months of Autumn. The four varieties in which is centred all there is of floral value are : D. Barbatus, D. Plumaris, D. Chinesis, D. Caryophyllus, D. Barbatus is better known by the name of "Sweet William," it differs from the other species by forming a flat top cluster, crowned with various colored small flowers. It is a native of Europe. An improved straim called the Arricular flower- ed, is very fine, from the distinct markings of the petals, some of the double sorts are rich, and remain in flower a long time. It is a perennial, but usually treated as a biennial. Seeds sown in the Spring will produce plants for flowering the following season. Dianthus Plumaris, is a native of Europe, but naturalized in many other countries. It has several Botanical and common names, as Pheasant eye Pink, Bunch Pink, Cushion Pink, &c. It is a low hardy perennial, blooming early in the Summer. The flowers are of a pale pink color, petals fringed and a pleasant fragrance. CARNATION CULTURE. 35 The improved varieties are double white, and double pink. Dianthus Chinesis, is a biennial, but flowers the first season from seed, and presents a great variety of colors in double and single flowers. It is very showy, but without fragrance. Seed saved and sown from D. Barbatus and D. Chinesis, will sport in endless varieties, in both form and color, in a bed containing hundreds of seedlings, there can scarcely be found two alike. D. Lanciniatus, D. Heddewiggii and D. Diadematus, are sports of D. Chinesis, and are highly prized garden flowers. The Picotee Pink has the color making the variegation only on the edge of the petals in a broad or narrow band, and if it ramifies tow^ard the center of the flower, it must be connected with the color on the edge. It is a cross or sport, or hybrid from the type or species mentioned. The Florists Pinks have the color between the base and edge of the petals, and in the whole flower, it must be in concentric circles. It is the progeny of D. Plumaris. D. Caryoph\'llus is found growing wild in the South of Europe. It is the fragrance of this variety resembling the Clove spice of commerce, that gave the family name of C'.iryophylliis to the Pink species of plants. This has lone" been a favorite flower, and its cultivation, crossing and hybridization has produced the grand Carnation of to-day. 36 CARNATION CULTURE. The Carnation Pink is the highest perfection attained from the wild single D. Caryophyllus. The Florists cultivation, crossing, and hybridi- zation, has been so successful with this class of plants, that there is little left to be desired. The range of colors attained is so extended, artistic, the grace of the flower so perfect, its durability so great, and its fragrance so delicious, that the Carnation now takes its stand in the esteem of the lov^ers of flowers and in commercial importance and value, close beside the Rose. Dianthus comes from two Greek words dios, divine, anthos, flower. The ancients in naming this flower, even in its single undeveloped state, refers to its beauty, color and symmetry. The Rose receives a high ethical name, the ''Queen of Flowers!' The Camelia, the ''Rose of Japan," the Chry- santhemum, the "Queen of Autumn." In grace of form and neatness, the Carnation is the equal- of any other flower. It is unrivaled in the wide variety of its rich tints of scarlet, crimson, rose and orange, in its pencilings of carmine and rose; its blotches and flakes of maroon and black, and in its peculiarly grateful and exhilerating fragrance; it stands without a peer. The bestowal on this flower of especial favors by nature, is recognized in a language 3000 years old. CARNATION CULTURE. 37 If the Pink in its original primative simplicity was worthy the Greek name of dio-antkos\ the grand evolved Carnadon of to-day more than merits to be crowned the ''Divine Flow^er." " TJie Sweetest S?nile of Nature^- CHAPTER VL PROPAGATING CARNATIONS ^ ROPAGATION of plants by any process which imitates the methods of nature by which she muhipHes her species, cannot be followed by any inherent weakness in the new plant, or its progeny. Striking Strawberry plants from the joints in the earth, in plunged pots; the division of the roots of the Blackberry; bending the canes of the Rasp- berry, that the top may touch and root in the earth; sowine seed and makincr the conditions favorable for germination and rapid growth, are all imitations of Natures methods. But in the creation of plants, Nature impressed upon the canes, or shoots of many of them, the possibilities under favorable circumstances of throw- ing out adventitious roots and thus become separate living organisms with all the lineaments of the parent plant. But Nature never propagated a Carnation by cutting a shoot, or incipient cane from the side of the old plant and bid it take upon itself a separate existence. A plant focalizes all its vital forces in the per- fection of its seed, and in the annuals and biennials, the circle of life is complete when this is done, and the plant dies. CAi'NATIOX CULTIRE. 39 It is for this purpose alone that it Hvecl. Nature has no green-house sufficiently conven- tional in which a Carnation cuttingr will strike root and live. The conditions under which many kinds will root at all, are so ricjid, and exactincr, that the ingenuity of man can scarcely achieve the result. In fact Nature revolts at this mode of multipli- cation, but it is our only means to pepetuate kinds, and produce quantities. The Florist complies with Natures exactions and furnishes the conditions, and she reluctantl)- fields. If the Florist succeeds in tlie difficult task, it would be natural to expect a diterioated organism, and weakened life. To avoid a natural decadence, it is of the first importance to start with a proper cutting, from a health)' plant and maintain for it the most favorable conditions. The most favorable conditions can be obtained from November to April. The cutting should be a side shoot from the plant or cane, about three inches long, and show no sings of shooting a flower stem. The slip can be broken off with the fingers, and put directly in the cutdng bed. without the use of a knife, and they will as certainl)' root as if trimmed and smoothly cut at the end. The wet clean sand in the cutting bench is smoothed with a trowel and then cut, the trowel 1 einr gauged b)- a strip of lath. 40 CARNATION CULTURE. The cuttings are placed in this incision in the sand, which are two inches apart, and the cuttings need not be more than half an inch apart, the sand should be firmed along the line of cuttings with the point of the trowel, and further compacted around the cuttings by a thorough wetting. When a small number of cuttings are to be struck, a shallow box filled with sand can be used with more convenience than the bench. There are some advantages in using boxes when the plant is to be extensively propagated, the boxes can be moved around, giving the cuttings new facings to the ViQ-ht and air. Cuttings of the Carnation can remain in the sand a long time after being rooted. We have set out the cuttings direct in the field from the sand, and they made good plants by Fall. But we do not recommend this plan. An inch of soil in the bottom of the box, and two inches of sand on the top, will afford root food for the cuttings, which would other-wise be weak. The cuttings should be sprinkled with a fine rose once aday, and they will root in about three weeks. The temperature should range from 45 to 65 degrees, and good ventilation maintained. A biennial involves the idea of a period of rest in the activity of the plant's vital forces. It would seem reasonable in the cultivation of this plant that this natural habit should be respected if the best results are desired. CARNATION CULTURE. 4 1 Mr. John Henderson in his address before die Society of American Florists at Cincinnati, touches significantly on this point in the following language. "Of late )ears one of the most annoying diseases attacking plants is that effecting Carnations, and it is undoubtedly caused by working our stock }'ear after year at a high temperature, which weakens the general vitality, and the diseases, be it a fungus or an insect, quickly follow^s. In the Fall of 1883, we had a surplus of two varieties of Carnations and, rather than too throw them away we "heeled" them in, in a cold frame, put- ting straw mats on the glass in extreme weather. They wintered well, and in March we put in a few hundred cuttino^s of each; we marked them, and last Winter they were the best plants we had, not one of them dying off, while we lost hundreds of the same kind in our reoular stock. And I firmly believe if this plan were adopted of winterinor Carnations that the Carnation disease would disappear. Another and perhaps more practical way ot avoiding the difficulty, we have practised for years, and that is to propagate our stock as early as possi- ble in the Winter, and after they have become established, knocking them out of the pots and putting them in shallow boxes in cold frames. This gives them some of the needed rest and the good effect is very marked." 42 CARNATION CULTURE, A TYPE OF THE WHITE CLASS OF CARNATIONS. CHAPTER VII. THE PROPER MOISTL'RE FOR CARNATIONS. ARNATION plants are impatient of wet undrained soil, either in the field, on the benches, or in pots. The physical structure of the plant convinces us of this without an\' knowledge of the fact practically. Careful experiment has disclosed the fact, that one square foot of leaf surface will, during fair weather, exhale vapor at the rate of one and a quarter ounces daily, at night the rate is one fifth as rapid as during the day, and during rainy weather a perfect equilibrium is restored betweed the exhal- ing and absorbing forces, and there is no evaporiza- tion. Comparing the narrow rigid grass like leaves of the Carnation, estimate the area of leaf surface with most other plants, and it will be seen the water evaporating capacity of the foliage, and consequent- ly the water absorbing capacity of the roots to be comparatively limited, so what would be sufficient, moisture, or wet, for many other plants would be an excess, and deleterious to the Carnation. The Carnation likes a moist cool atmosphere, hence they should be sprinkled or sprayed frequently, but not too much moisture about the roots. The cause of Carnations on benches rotting off at the surface, is caused by too much moisture, in 44 CARNATION CULTURE. connection with them being- planted in the bench soil higher or deeper than the\' were in the soil in which they grew in the field, and b)' bad quality of bench earth, the latter is fatal, no matter how open for drainage the bench boards are. If the bench earth is made out of imperfect rotted, or spongy manure, and the Carnation planted too low, it will certainly decay at the root. The skin or rind of the stalk above and below the surface differs as much as the mucus membrane of the mouth does from the epidermis of the cheek. Either can be converted and made to discharge the functions of the other under favorable conditions, but if circumstances are unfavorable there v/ill be trouble in both cases, in the transfer of dudes. This decay of the Carnation at the root is not a disease, it is simple mismanagement of the plant. The drainage of plants in pots must be perfect- Flat or shallow boxes in which cutting^s are transplanted from the cutdng bench, should have holes bored in the bottom of each box. Plants carried in cold frames must have perfect drainage. Plants lifted from the open ground and planted on benches for winter blooming, should be done after a rain, in cloudy weath(^r if possible, with an unbroken ball of earth adherino- to each root, when transplanted they should be sprayed, and the eardi only moderately wetted. The soil on the benches should never be permitted to become sodden and sour. CARNATION CULTURE. 45 Frequently spraying the Carnations after trans- planting as with other plants, discharges a two fold purpose in keeping with the scientific principle' before stated. It does aw^ay with the absorbing labor of the roots, which can not for a time be discharged, by the reason of them being ruptured and displaced. Then the evaporization of the sprayed moisture on the foliage absorbs heat as it passes into vapor, which is grateful to the vital forces of the plant. The sand on the bench in which the cuttings are placed, should be quite wet and the cuttings daih' dampened with a fine rose watering pot until they begin to strike root, when both top aod bottom moisture can be somewhat reduced. Wet is ver)- damaging to the bloom of the Carnation. The bloom should be picked before the bench is watered, and possibh' this flower is the onl}- one that is shipped to market, often hundreds of miles distance without the least moisture being allowed about it. It is impossible to sa}' how often this plant should be watered. As a rule they should be watered when the)' need it, and a dr)' condition of the ground, and the first signs of the plant flagging for moisture, shows thev need it. The conditions are these: that Carnations do not need as much water, or as frequent applications of it as many other plants; that the)- rapidly" recover 46 CARNATION CULTURE. themselves after havinof suffered for the want of water without material injury; that a wet sodden soil is ruinous to the plant; that more harm results from over- watering than from under- watering; that experience as well as the physical anatomy of the plant, points to moderate moisture for the plant, and perfect drainage for the roots. CHAPTER VIII. ROUTINE OF Cx\RNATION CULTURE FOR CI T FLOWERS. ^UTTINGS, or rooted plants are obtained in ^ the early Sprini^ months for the stock of fej Carnations which are to be grown through § the Summer for Winter bloom on benches. If the Florist propagates them himself, he is refered to the chapter on this subject. The plants should be hardened off in a cold frame, and as soon as all danger of freezing is over, planted out in the open Carnation field. A moderate freeze would not damage a harden- ed off Carnation plant, but the danger is, it may not be in this condition. A perfectl)' hardy plant is very tender when grown in a high temperature. It is hard to determine by sight, when it has attained its true resisting nature to cold. The chances are it is preternaturally tender, if grown in a glass house, even with little fire heat. Hence the precaution is so necessary to harden it off, before exposing it to the vicissitudes of the open temperature of the early Spring months. i\s soon as the ground can be properly worked, varying from the 20th of April, to the 20th of May, in this latitude, it is made ready for the young plants. 48 CARNATION CULTURE. It should be of a clayey nature, well under- drained heavily coated with finely rotted manure, deeply ploughed, thoroughly pulverized with a harrow, evenly rolled, and acurately marked out, both ways, having the crosses for the plants, ten inches apart each way. Holes are made with a foot dibber in which the plants are firmly planted. The plants are w^orked early and frequently during the season, both ways with "Planet" cultivator. All alleys, or paths throug'h a Carnation field should be avoided. The weeders should throw the weeds in a box, or basket, provided with temporary feet and handle, and carry them off the field. Carnations require to be kept free from weeds; this with breaking off the flower shoots as they appear during the season,' is all attention they require until the latter part of September. By this date, the Carnation benches in the house, or houses are prepared for the plants by being filled with soil four inches deep, or if the benches were occupied with Carnations the previous year, it should be turned over, removing the bulbs of the old Carnations, and one-fifth of the soil and replenish with fresh earth to this amount. The balls of earth adhering to the roots of the plants will deepen the bench soil one inch. There is danger of having the soil on the benches too rich, and the bottom too light, this will not afford good drainage. CARNATION CULTURE. 49 All danger to a good crop of Carnation flowers lies in these two possible errors. If the soil is to poor, it is easily enriched with bone dust, liquid manure, or fine compost distrib- uted between the rows with the hands. I would fill the benches with orood crarden soil. The benches being ready, and taking the advantage of cool damp weather, the Carnation plants are lifted with a ball of earth adhering to each, which, when planted, will increase the depth of bench earth one inch. The adhesion of a ball of earth to the roots, cannot be obtained in sandy soil, but fortunately this is not the kind of soil suited to the Carnation. The operation of lifting is performed with a concave spade, one person using the spade, another seizing the ball as it is raised to the surface, and removing the surplus earth, places it slantingly in a box. The filled boxes are hauled on a sled to the front, or rear doors of the Carnation house. The Carnation field should be near the houses. Five men will lift and transplant 20,000 plants on benches in one wxek. Excavations are easily made with the hand in the finely pulvarized soil on the benches, dovrn to the bottom, in which the ball is placed, the point resting on the boards and the soil brouQ-ht around it and firmly pressed. The plants on the benches being of medium size should be planted eight inches apart each wa)', and two inches from the maroin of the bench. ^O CARNATION CULTURE. All benches in Green-houses should have an air space intervening" between the benches and dead wall. The plants being- in place on the benches, should be freely sprayed and the soil moderately dampened. The doors and ventillators should be left open until required to be closed by severe weather, approching freezing, out side. The plants will not need shading-, if lifted after a rain. The necessary watering, ventillating, tempera- ture, weeding and fumig'ating, are all there is to attend to, except to pluck the flowers, until the follow- ing April, when the power of the sun will be so great that the plant will need shading by strong lime water on the glass. The lime water may be thrown on the glass with a syringe, or applied with a common white wash brush. A simple and cheap shading is made by mix- ing Naptha with a little white lead, so as to give it the color of thin milk and apply it with a syringe. The intensity of the sun rays m?ist be modified without materially lessening the light, if blooming Carnations are to be successfully carried far into the hot months in the house. The above mentioned means are the best known, and will remove themselves in the Fall after the first frost. The early blooming kinds when they show signs of exhaustion, their vigor may be renewed by strong- liquid manure. CARNATION CULTURE, 5 I The earlier and later varieties, if watered and shaded, will condnue to afford bloom undl the first of the following August. After this the bloom is so scarce, and the demand so light, the plants will not repay further care, and will die and leave the benches in the condidon found at the commencement of this chapter. The best plants for Fall lifting and Winter bloomino-, are trrown from cuttino-s taken from the plant as soon as the temperature is favorable for them strikino-, and before there has been much artificial heat applied; and carried until the following Spring in a low temperature. Carnations can be well carried through the Winter by filling boxes w^ith the lifted plants and placing them in cold frames. The smallest plants from the field, put in three inch pots and shifted into larger pots in March, will make fine pot plants for the Spring sales. Plants from the field can be lifted and heeled in, in a cold frame and potted in the Spring. If planted ten inches apart in a cold frame, and the sides of the frame removed in the Spring, they will bloom early and profusely. Mice are the greatest enemy to Carnation s in cold frames during Winter. The varieties of Carnations to cultivate, most profitably, for cut flowers depends on the market to be supplied, and adaptability of plants to the soil of the localit)'. Our market requires three or four white Carna- tions to one colored. 52 CARNATION CULTURE. It Is different from other markets. In a stock of 20,000 housed plants we would have one-half Snowdens, one fourth Henzies and Hendersons, the other fourth would consist of Seawan and Black Knig-ht, crimson; Garfield and Lady Emma, scarlet; Grace Farden and Grace Wilder, pink; Chester Pride and Mrs Carnagie, white-variegated; Sunrise and Butter Cup, yellow-variegated. With this list w^e commence shipping flowers, from the houses, on October i, and continue until the first of the following August. This stock requires 12,000 square feet of glass and will average fifteen flowers per plant. . CHAPTER IX. HOW TO PACK AND SHIP CARNATION PLANTS AND THE CUT FLOWERS. I HERE is but one way to ship cut flowers, that is the right way. There is a doubt whether that way is yet discovered. There are many ways of packing; if the right one was known, there would be but one mode. The field is open to an inventive practical mind. Carnation flowers are not as difficult to pack for transportation as other flowers. They* differ in this repect, that they are always shipped dry. Light wooden boxes, of dimensions correspond- ing in size with the quantity to be shipped; is the best plan. They are not likely to be crushed and water does not effect them. The lid should be huncr on hinQ-es, and the box have an efficient clasp. Express Companies return these boxes gratutiously. The number of boxes needed is proportioned to the frequency of shipments and the number of patrons. A set of boxes will last two seasons. A box two and a half feet long, by fifteen inches wide and deep, will hold six or seven hundred Carnation flow^ers. 54 CARNATION CULTURE. There should be a light partition in each box equally dividing the space, the pressure of the flowers on each other is thus reduced, and they will open in much better shape In quite cold weather the boxes can be lined inside with sheet cotton tacked to the bottom, sides and top. Oiled paper should be betw^een the cotton and the flow^ers. With this precaution, it is very rarely that Carnation flowers will be damaged by cold, even if th^ thermometer should reach 20 degrees below zero. In warm weather all lining is unnecessary except the oil paper. In very warm weather, and for a long journey, ice wrapped in woollen cloth and securely fastened to the bottom of the box, can be used to great advan- tage, if the moisture can be kept from coming in contact with the flowers. Moisture soon discolors and damages Carnation flowers. The Carnation flower should open and mature on the plant; an inmature floweret will soon shrivel, a niahired one is the most lasting of all flowers. They should be kept perfectly dry after packing, and thus shipped, at the end of a five hundred mile journey, will open up nicely. On some varieties of Carnations, the flowers mature in a close cluster of buds, such cannot be picked with a stem, while other kinds have a single flower on a long stem. CARNATION CULTURE. 55 Flowers with long stems command 25 to 50 cents per hundred more than those without stems; by reason of the delay and expense of stemming which is avoided. Flowerets with their calyx torn are valuable; the process of stemming cures largely this defect. A package of cut flowers should be labeled very legibly. The shipping tag should bear the date of shipment, this imforms the consignee the length of time the package has been on the road and thus locates the responsibility. The safe and speedy transportation of flowers often depends on the package being marked with a noticeble tag. The contents at once becomes known to the Express Agent, its perishable nature is obvious to him, and on many rail roads he is instructed to give such packages special care. The shipping tags adopted for cut flower packages by the Society of American Florists admirably serves its purpose. The Society is making arrangements with Express Companies that all packages bearing this tae shall have the care its contents demand. I have so frequently seen the great advantages of this tag that I deem it proper to give a fac-simile of it on another page, and feel warranted in saying that every shipper of cut flowers should use it. An Electrotype of the leaf can be cheaply obtained at the office of the American Florist, Chicago. ^6 CARNATION CULTURE. fe:^!^t^!<5i:^!^•^!^^!^l^!^^I^i2^!4li^!. (edwards.) [s.] Good jj-row- er large flowers. J^iile CcLvle. (CAULK, KKANCK.) [N.] Healthy branching, average size, habit free, early, very symmetrical flower. Jilcu'iJ -An.cierHoii. (simmons.) [s] Stand- ard size grower, very large flowers. Pres. DegrcL^v. ^zkh-lkr.) [c] (Syn. Flat Bush.) Habits dwarf, stem weak, average size flower, early, fringed, one of the oldest.' JPeter Ileridersf.iz. (chaulton.) [o.] Vigor- ous healthy grower, medium, early, shell- like petals, flowers large, do not burst, standard sort, likes stiff soil. Qixeen. of T\^hztrs. (knglish origin.) [o] Standard size plant, average merit as a winter bloomer. QjxcLpLer City. (banyarp.) [s.] Very dwarf and compact habit, extra free bloomer, but late in February and March. Secretary Iliuxt. (simmons.) [s.j Compact habit, free bloomer, large flower. Sjxotv Hall. (BKETMYHK.) [0.] Avcragc grow- er and bloomer, seedling of Degraw and much like it. SnOT\^de7X. (mkndf.rson.) [0.] Dwarf branching grower, very early, extra free bloomer, average size flower, good calyx support. Sea. FooJirt. (itam.ock.) [S.J Medium size grow- er, large flowers, double, fine texture, and frao^rant. CARNATION CULTURE. I 35 S/ to w- 73o7i 7\cl. (coNK.M..) [x] Dwarf grower, free early bloomer. WlLiicutl- Sweety fui. (svvaynk) [x] Parents Snowden and Henderson, plant a health)- standard grower, early and perpetual bloomer, long stems, perfect calyx support, flowers large and very double. CATALOGUE OF THE SCARLET CLASS OF CARNATIONS. AlegcutieT'e-. (alk^atikhf, i-ranck.) [x.] Dwarf and very healthy habit, large flow^ers on long stems, perpetual bloomer, fine shade of scarlet; acres of this sort raised for the Paris market. B. A. KJliott. (SIMMONS.) [S.] Healthy branching grower, continuous but not a free bloomer, very large flowers, vermilion scarlet. IBrUltaJif. [0.] Bright scarlet, fragrant, fair grower. TDeftarico. [o.] Scarlet Carnation, esteemed for outdoor flowerinof. JtlrljTions. [0.] Healthy, bright scarlet, quite fragrant. 136 CARNATION CULTURE. Fomnrp WlsJip'*. (kisukh.) [n.] Good healthy grower, scarlet salmon, fragrant. J^Lra JBrruirl. (,:kip.) [o] Gross healthy grower, moderate bloomer, deep red. ( I (UUitlpf. [rrj Strong grower, abundant bloomer, light shade carmine. CJr'arui.ditxe. (kuropk.) [s.] Intense scarlet. flcLrry 'Painter. (palmer.) [n] Large, good grower, shell-shaped petals, fine scar- let. Johrt ^^^cCnllongJi . (s.mmons.) [s.j Good grower, large flowers, brilliant scarlet. tTctnxes 1:^. ^Wiiy^Trlcin.d. (thorpk.) [s] Flow- er very large, perfect shape, deeply fringed, moderately free bloomer, brilliant scarlet. L/CLcLy ErrLincL (starr.) [o] Dwarf, compact habit, flowers profusely, good scarlet. ZjCL P rj'itie. {j^ecL) (ze.m.kr.) [o.j Healthy, medium size grower, very free bloomer, one of the first sorts introduced. Tjogn Ti . (,;raham.) [X.] Good grower, flowers large, light red. Portici. (thorpk.) [(>.] (Syn. Fred. Johnson.) Vigorous constitution, flowers medium size, freely produced, intense bright scarlet. ^r"S. Gri rflpld . (brrtmyrk) [o.]^ Strong compact grower, quite tree, perfect flower, one of the best for pots, English vermillion. CARNATION CULTURE. I 37 JP/iilcLdelphicL. (kichnor.) [s] (Syn. Metior.) Tall straight grower, branching style, very free, bright scarlet. Rohei't Craig. (mccal.am.) [s.] Very neat branching, healthy grower, profuse bloom- er, fine shade oi scarlet. SeCLCCL^JiCUS. (HUDSON, CO., N. Y.) [0.] A light shade of carmine. ScCLJ^let Grem. (graham.) [o.j Dwarf vigorous habit, free flowering, rich dazzling scarlet. Secretoj^y Wirhdonx. (simmons.) [s.j Free grower, constant bloomer, brilliant scarlet. TJxe Century. (starr.) [s.] Remarkable healthy grower, medium height, full double, rich fragrance, glowing carmine, suffused with a magenta shading. Whzttiei^. (SIMMONS.) [s.] Bright vermillion scarlet, buds of great size, liable to burst. 'WcLVerly. (scott.) [o.] Large bright red. 'X^ZJ^eiX. (STARR.) [0.] Large bright red. CRIMSON CLASS OF CARNATIONS. A:rLTLCL TVebb. (fisher.) [n.j Medium size, branching habit, very free, perpetual bloomer. JBoTLTty TDooTL. (HENDKRsoN.) [0.] Bright magenta. I3S CARNATION CULTURE. J3lcic?c J'Cn_.ig7it. (thorpe ) [o.j Standard size plant, long stems, fragrant, deep crimson. Brijar\t (simmons.) [sj Free bloomer, soft lake, with dark stripes. J3cLltic. [o] Dark maroon. J3r-ussels. (staer.) [p.] Strong bushy style, very double, free, cherry red with broad stripes of maroon. CliftOJi Fisher\ (p,sher.) [n.] Very large, dark crimson. Crirrtson I^nxg. (white) [o.j Robust, stand- ard height, free, deep crimson. Col. 'WildeT\ (THORPE.) [s.] Fine habit, free, perfect shape, large, vivid red, flaked with black. CccrdsitxaZ. (fisher.) [s.] Strong tall habit, flow- ers very large, deep maroon with spots of white. jJcLl^l^ness. (0.) Crimson maroon. JE. Gr. Hill. (THORPE.) [s.] Fine shade of scarlet, and style extra, early and free, long stems. JFletcL FcLZ/ Foster^, (oberly.) [n.] Medium branchy, healthy, perpetual, free, never bursts, magenta suffused wdth violet. Fer^dincLThd JilcLixgold. (simnons.) [s.] Free, continuous, long stems, very large, dark red shaded with maroon. Hervrietta. [o.] Dark red. CARNATION CULTURE. * 1 39 HizgJx G-rcLJ^cuTLs (graham.) [n.] Good grow- er, flowers large, dark scarlet. I^CLLzaT' Wzllioiix. . (KOTKLBFTz.) [s.] Violet pur- ple, magenta shadings, J^f/te. [s.] Dark fiesh color, fragrant. K^irtg (^i' tJxe CrtJixsoixs. (white.) [oj Dark rich shade of crimson, produced in profu- sion. Louts Lenotr. (eeiller.) [s.] Dark maroon, JL/OTV^elZ. (SIMMONS.) [s.] Rich deep purple, crim- son shaded with violet, very large. jlfi7^a^7i.cLcL. (THORPE.) [s.] Strong grower, free bloomer, rich plum color. J\£rs. J^eerta. (vetch, England.) [X.] Very large flowers, shy bloomer. OrieTzt. (fisher.) [X.j Crimson. OthelZo. [s.] Good habit, free bloomer, crimson. ^zirple Cro^VTh. [o.j Maroon shaded purple. SecLWOJTL. (jEFFRYs.) [s.] Dwarf,' compact, healthy, fine habit, good calyx support, deep crimson, fine for pots. SecT'Ptcu^y ICii^kvj^ood. (simmons) [s.j Large, form good, deep brilliant crimson. Topsy. fs^ARR.^ [s.] Deep velvet maroon, petals like shells. 'VesixvizLS. (HENDERSON) [0.] (Syn. Starr.) Large flowers, dark crimson. 140 CARNATION CULTURE. W I lippeT-In . (TETCH, ENGLAND.) [N.] LaFgc flow- ers, scarlet and black. W^ ^V. Coles. (TnoRPE.) [N.] Long stems, free bloomer, very early, light scarlet, good habit. PINK CLASS OF CARNATIONS. ^/Irrher^iccLTL ']Vo7ider. (hippard.) [s] Dwarf bushy growth, strong lons^ flower stems, large perfect flowers, freely produced, J^JhcLTLJj. [0.] Carmine pink. Becvuity. („ill.) [o.j Rose motded with carmine and red. ClxcLS, Henda-nsoTL. (thorpe.) [s.] Free grow- er, large flowers, light carmine rose. ChcLS. Sjzmjner^. (bock.) [o.] (Syn. Bock's Seedling.) Rank habit, large, flowers finely fringed, fragrant, bright pink. JDcLWix. rsTARR.) [s.] Dwarf, early and" profuse» deep rose centre shaded with white. FcuwTh. [N.] Delicate pink. FlOTeTtce JBevis. (graham.) [ki Good grow- er, large, flowers fringed, light pink. GrrcLce Fcurdon, (simmons.) [s.j Vigorous grower, average size flower, tree bloomer, pure rich pink. CARNATION CULTURE. I4I GrcLce 'Wild-er. (tailby.) [s.] Good stand- ard grower, ordinarily free, fine rose pink. JcLTThes Pej^lx.tns, (simmons.) [s.] Quite free habit, good size flowers, unusually fragrant, continuous bloomer, pure soft rose. Loihgfell o^^^ . (simmons.) [s.] Healthy and free bloomer, flowers large, soft salmon rose. LtlLvl. (HENDERSON.) [S.J Light pink. IjCLcly Chcttttrh. (staru.) [s.] Parents La Puritie and Astoria, rosy carmine, striped and flaked with crimson and maroon. LjCLlLrcL. (vetch, England.) [n.] Light Salmon, very large and free, Le i'CLVOJ^t. (LA coNDiE, FRANCE.) [X.] A vcry free variety, hard to propagate. j\drs. A. RoZker. (thorpe.) [s] Fair grower, pale flesh tint, deeply fringed. JKIi^s. JVLcLixgolcL. (thorpe.) [s.j Fine free habit, large flowers, soft salmon. Jdr*s, GcLTfield. (bretmyre.) [s.l Broad foliage, very robust, rich shade of Chinese pink. j\£cty Qizeerh. (thorpe.) [s.j Tall grower, large flowers, broad petals, deep pink. ][£rs. JHcITenzie. (henderson. [s.j Rose color, finely fringed. JHctd. CfiCLSSons. (alegatiere, FRANCE.) [s.] Deep rose. JVTrs. Joltjf. (GEO. joLiFF, ENGLAND.) [0.] Standard size plant, early, fair size flower, delicate flesh tint. 142 CARNATION CULTURE. FetlzrticL. (thorpe.) [s.] Large flower, rich laven- der rose, mottled with white, deeply fringed. Princess Lousise. (tailby.) [o.] Rose pink, flow, ers extra large. Hose IILIL (BALLENDoz. [s.i (Syn. Rosedale.) Dwarf habit, very profuse bloomer, a shade darker than Grace Wilder. Rosy J\£om. (Henderson.) [S.] Salmon pink. RosCLlirtd. (thorpe.) [s.] An extra tall habit, long stems, quite free, a lively shade of pink. SheIlflo~v,^eT (henderson.) [o.j a beautiful shade of delicate rose. Stcvr of the 'West. [o.] Deep pink. Spr'irig field, (muller.) [o.j Light pink striped, fine grower and bloomer. Victor^' (PAGE.) [N.] (Syn. Pages Seedling.) Average size, very free. » * ♦ > ♦ YELLOW CLASS OF CARNATIONS. Aixdoloixsie. (europe.) [n.] Large flowers, freely produced, upright branching habit, sulphur yellow, deeply fringed, fragrant, medium early. Bell HcLllcbdcty. (europe.) [s.] Quite late In blooming. CARNATION CULTURE. 1 43 Field- of CtoIcL. (starr.) [s.] Parents Astoria and Edwardsii, small good yellow flower, quite late, Feb. and March. JPride of JPeJi shines t. (ecrope.) [n.j Stocky habit, late, a variety of g-reat expectations. JTelloTV Qzzeen-. (europe.) [s.j Late bloomer. Yellow-Variegated Class of Carnations. A.stOT*ta.. (wiLLsoN.) [0.] Good grower, yellow striped carmine; this is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, yellow-variegated Carna- tions in America, and is one of the parents of some of the finest kinds. A^stOT^icL 13erftixa, [o.] Fair grower, orange yellow, mottled crimson. A^mei^iccLTh Florist, (starr.) [x.j Very healthy grower, medium height, profuse bloomer, long stems, flowers large and full, yellow flaked carmine. BixtteT'CLip . (STARR.) [s.] Robust grower, free bloomer, medium size plant, long stems, parents-Astoria and La Puritie, pencled deep lemon yellow, sparingly carmine. ColzLmbtcL. (THORPE.) [X.] Healthy, long stems, perfect calyx support, early, rosy salmon, dashed brio-ht scarlet, frino-ed and robust. 144 CARNATION CULTURE. IJolly 'V^curden.. (hendkrson.) [oj Vig-orous habit, free bloomer, buff striped crimson and maroon. Dc FoTttcLJXCL, [o.] Orang-e striped crimson. Dixke of Oj^CLTcge, (starr) [o.] Fair habit late bloomer, productive, striped orange, edcred carmine, Parents- Astoria and Edwardsii. EmersiOrt. (simmons.) [s.] Salmon, striped ver- million. FcLl^T^a gizt . [s.j Carmine and yellow neatly laced, edged purple and maroon. FcLlxcy. (STARR.) [s.] Fine habit, scarlet shaded yellow, striped with crimson. Olory of T^erhice, [o.] Orange and rose. IdcL JMcty. (CONRAD.) [s.] Excellent habit, rich creamy yellow, marble- and splashed with carmine and pink. Jctmes J3, JCidd. (simmons. [s.j Branching nature, flowers large, cream colored, mark- ed purple, Vermillion. JecLTL Sisley. (alkgatiere, france.) [n.] Vigorous, fine habit, large flowers buff, ground with scarlet stripes. JcLTThes J\dfLcLtson, [O.] Yellow striped, carmine. Zjtttle BecLTzty. (starr.) [s.] Rich yellow, dotted and edged with rose. CARNATION CULTURE. 1 45 iL/i/dicL, rsTARR.) [{)] Tall grower, flowers very large and double, with intense clove fra- grance, orange yellow. Mnn.s. GcU7zhettrt. iz^.u.uvAx) [o.] Fair grow- er, orange, and yellow variegated, Jifr^i, fJ. Uippa f'cl . (tmorpk.) [s.j Dwarf habit, free, medium size flower, perfect shape, orange shaded and penciled with crimson. jpoe. (SIMMONS.) [s.] Cream specked with purple. It, R. JParl^pp. (=.TAKR.) [N.i Dwarf com|>art habit, free, large double, peach-blow flaked , with carmine. Secretcu'ij IttxcolTx, (simmons.) r^.i Solferi- no, shaded purple and violet, large, flaked with crimson. Scnx-Rise. (kicunoi^o [g.i Good habit, free, long stems, orange. SlZ7X-Set. (iiipiv.Kn.) [X.] Yellow and scarlet, fringed, strong habit, flowers very large. SeJXSCLtion. (tmorp^:.) [s. i Perfect form, crimson yellow, pink and white. ^^eruzs. (sTAUi.) [S] Light canary yellow, slight stripes of carmine, parents - Astoria and Edwardsii. White-Variegated Class of Carnations. AjTtei^tccLtx I3niij\et\ [x.] Striped with carmine and white, white ground, edged and spotted with crimson. J 46 CARNATION CULTURE. Al^oriCZctle. rsTARn.) [s] Free, white, .'edged widi purple and maroon. ^i. CFitzpcbf ric. ^shimons.) \9.-\ Free, branch- ing habit, dwarf, healthy grower, pure white, and crimson-variegated. ^JBcujctrrL Trtylc)!'. (stahu^ [s.] Large, . white and crimson-variegated. ClccrcL Jilori'is. (simmons.) [s.j Model flovv-er, pure white, edge petals margined crimson. C/iesLe/' Pi^icle. (j. ki.waim.s) [o.] Never bursts, winter bloomer, free, white penciled rosy carmine. Calico. (sTARii.) [s.] Creamy white, terra-cotta and crimson, edged white. lEtzreka., (stark.) [s.' Dwarf, white, edged and striped peach-blow\ Fcttry Prt'icxi^s, (t,i„upk.) [>^.] Large, i ure white, penciled with purple and crimson. iPcLSCZTirLtion. [o.] Large, full, pure white, blotch with rosy scarlet. Geo, 'WcLshinxftorL^ (zkmi.e«.) [o.j White ground, dotted cherry red. 'Htrhsdnle. (ai.lkn.) \o.\ (Syn. Allen's Degraw\) i White, striped vith pink. IIolm.es. (s.MMON...) [s.i Free, perfect flower, pure white, sprinkled with rose. tT. J. HcurTisou . (s.vm.»ns.) [s.j (Syn. Pink of Perfecdon.) Vigorous, Jiealthy habit, flower fair size, free, does not burst, fra- grant, long stems, satin white, marked shaded pink. CARNATION culture; I47 iLcL Ej^cMlcTii. (STARR.) [0.] Pure white, car- .: mine edge. 'LllZicux. . (STARR.) [o.] Vigorous grower, small flower, white, striped deep crimson. Let PixrU ie-\-ru\ (Tr-sNnKRsoN) [o] Healthy, free, a sport of La Puritie [red.] JArs. II. C. FricJx,. (.s.mmo.ns.) [s] " Unhealthy, white, slighdy variegated with purple crimson. JilcLLZclo. (STARR.) [.*^.i Strong grower, white with slight penciling of carmine. JilcLJ'geiqj, [0] Strong standard grower, white, striped with vermillion. J[IcL"y Dcu^ce. [o.] White, tinged with pink! Jllrs. ^V. yl. IlcLt'iis. (T.ioRPK.) [s.] Good habit, large fine shape flower, fragrant. 'jVot jK^ruTicrL (snAKKL.)[N.j White, marbled rosy pink. JPKilcLclelph ? a- TW t\ (starr) [s.] Early, long stems, white, heavily edged with crim- son. Secretcf r-ij M cA^eir/Ti . (s.mmons.) [s.] (Syn. Chas. J. Clark.) Large, white, shaded rose. Sec~retm'iJ Jcunci^. (simmo.vs.) [s.] (Syn. Mrs. Carson.) White, striped scarlet. SecJ^cUirqj clflcLinr. (simmons.) [s.j (Syn. Mrs. Carnagic.) White with rosy pink stripes, wmII burst. TJjxcle HffJll. /TMPLF..) [x.] White, striped with light pink, 'V^CU^-IjCL B(/ll(\ (STARR.) [s.] White, penciled rosy carmine. yV^, H. Ijrov\^cj\ [X.] Delicately penciled , scarlet:. l^S CARNATION CULTURE. — The disease of Carnations called Brown-mould IS of Encrlish oriofin; its first manifestation in America has been seen on the Pride of Penshurst, a variety of recent importation. . —A marked difference exists amoncr varieties of Carnations \n pi^omisino- tsxxA performifig their yield of bloom; some sorts remain in bud a long time, others bloom as soon as their buds are developed. — Pips is the name given to Carnation cutttings of incipient canes; after they show a joint, they make tall unsightly plants. The lowest healthy side shoots of the flower stems make stocky, symmetrical plants, always branching low, but do not bloom as soon as the former. — ?vIythology says tlie Carnation sprang from the blood of rival lovers, and the poetical language of the flower has been "Disdain." To modern Carnations is given a symbolical language of warmer and more generous sentiments according to their color. White — Purity. Scarlet — Dignity. Crimson — Ardent Love. Pink — Acceptance. Yellow — False, light as air. White- Variegated — Friendship only. Yellow-Variegated — Refusal. — It is the nature of the roots of biennial pkuits the first season to provide widiin themselves a 5:tore of nourishment and all necessary germs, for hill flowering and free fructification the second season.- The amount of root growth, the second season is quite limited, and the juices are not directed in crc- CARNATION CULTURE. I 49 ^tlng 7ieiv flower germs, or increasinor the store of nourishment, but are used for the inimediate living: wants of the plant. It is on this principle that the blooming- capacily of a Carnation in zvinter, is determined in the field during- S2{imiier\ favorable conditions the first season settles all, and the soil is the largest factor, in my opinion, with this plant. Cuttings from the same bench g^rown through summer in improper soil will be worthless for winter bloom, while those planted in proper soil will bloom profusely. — A flower is a transformed leafy branch. All its organs are natural green leaves, which have under- gone a peculiar change. All changes in flowers are but modified forms of their tissues, their tissues being modified forms of the leaves on the parenjt branch. Excessive plant nourishment, and conditions favoring its assimilation, is the key that unlocks all the mystery there is, in the unfoldment of new and better flowers. Plethora of plant food converts green leaves in- to bracts, bracts into sepals, sepals into petals, petals into stamins and swells the doubleness of the corrob la. The process of this modification is from the circumference toward the pistil, the central female organ. This law is not uniform in its operations. It is the conversion of the ororans of o^eneration into petals that causes double flowers to be barren of seed, the g'erms of new plants. The pistil is formed of a folded welded leaf. Natural conditions, quality and quantity of food, wiU in time reduce all highly improved flowers to a sin- gle, or to their natural t)'pe. The reverse is evolv- (1.50 CARNATION C L L T I RE. )ing now, and will continually in the future new and improved specimens in the Ho ral world, and the ulti- mate limit of these transformations is beyond the "conceptions of man. 1 1 — r- » »»♦«♦ , ■ •^i mw*xx.oGf^s:> - I am done. I entered the Temple of Dianthus, and the little that I learned is written here. I leave the book, fofnvhat it is worth, an offering on the Altar. f : I love the Divine flower It has been loved in the past. Its fame began in the morning of the ryester-days. Three thousand years ago it shook its rfragrance from on/y five petals, and Greece, the fland of language and of learning, exclaimed Dio- aiithos!* It will live and o^row in esteem, as lono- as men homage at the shrine of beauty and of fragrance. ' The soul's strong affinities for this flower make it equally appropriate to the smiles of youth, or to the wrinkles of. age; to the loneliness of the sick room; to seasons of pleasure, or to seasons of sorrow; to the gayties of the festal hour, or to lighten the shadows to the silent beyond. It is enduring. Its comely symmetry makes it the sweetest "Smile of Nature;" its wide range of beauteous colors an illuminated "Letter in the Alphabet of Angels." While its weird perfume is the epitome of all mystery, and makes it a Sis- yphus Flower, which mind will roll forever upward toward the Great Unknowable. It is not haughty, but simple and genial. It is not Queenly, but plainly democratic. CARNATION CULTURE. I5I In the young world's sunrise, it doubtless was a denizen of the Tropics. It has been a Pilgrim, and anchored near its Plymouth Rock. Earth's muta- tions made for it a home in the north. There it lives — ever-blooming as the flowers of the south, plainly grand, and defiantly beautiful. Its fragrance is of the gums and spices that are in the drowsy air of the isles of ocean, while its adorned corrolla shows thec(»lor wealth of all the zones Vatious flowers have shouldered for the world's applause. The Tulip, Dahlia and Camelia have waxed and waned. The Rose now has the people's smiles. This is fame, but how unstable ? It is hail- ed the "Queen of Flowers." ^'Her Majesty." "Ben- net " "Bride" and "Beauty;" new born heirs of greater promise, for a time, have stayed her totter- ing throne, but coronets are made of smiles and exile is but a frown. Dianthus is the coming flower. Its salvos are heard among the to-morrows. It contains imprison- ed with its mystic life force the fluw of wonderful evolvement Its marvelous nature ever responds to the magic touch of the Florist's art. It is ever abrea'>t with the progress of the ages. Thirty years ago a new and nobler race came trooping into light. Every year new specimens of greater excellence make an advance in its mighty march of grandeur; to-day fifty rain-bow petals nestle around its anthers. Its other name is Evolution. When will these transformations of incieasing beauty cease ? When the Dynasty of Rosaceae is deposed, and Caryophyllaceae, sits, transfigured, on the Throne of Flora, as the world's first love. 'Divine Flower. The exact size of "SEA GULL" that took the Silver Fla- f^^^^ ^on Prize, at Madison Square O^"^ T;^^ Exhibition, in New York, in the -"^'^^^f^ fall of 189]. ^"^- CHAPTER. XXV. ROOTIIS^G CUTTINGS. ^gXPERIENCE has reduced itself to this maxim, viz: A good Carnation cutting is in inverse ratio to a devel* oped peduncle, cuttings should be rooted at a tempera- ture, so low, that it would require three weeks, or more, to do it. They can be rooted from Oct. 1st. until April 1st., and it is well there is a wide range of time, for a stock, productive of flowers, however ample, will not afford a large yield of good cuttings at any one time. If a plant or stock of plants yields a profusion of cuttings they must be correspondingly un- proluctive oE bloom, and the cuttings will partake of this fault. Cuttings are taken secondary to the crop o£ bloom, if it is desirable to propagate more largely they must be primary and the plants disbudded. Cuttings before striking, or immediately afterwards, with developed flower stems, are comparatively worthless. The best cuttings are obtained from the base of the least forced plants. Cuttings should be taken chiefly in December and January. Wm. Swayne says he gets the best results when struck in March. Chetty says he obtained good results and early field bloom from Henzie, struck in October. Henderson says incalculable damage is done to Carnations by striking them in a high temperature* Early stuck cuttings, kept growing by carrying them foward into three and four inch pots will materially ad- vance the time of bloom,, and thereby popularize Carnations as bedding plants for spring sales. FERTILIZERS. Further experinrtc^ confirms the necessity of avoiding all manure in the field, or on the benches unless it is most 15i CARNATIOK CULTURE. thorouglily rotted; partially decomposed manure is positively injurious to Carnations. Lime, Glround Bone, and well rotted manure are the best fertilizers for the field, for the benches Bone and manure water. Thorp thinks the benched plants should be stimu- lated with manure water at the time the heaviest crops of bloom are making their drafts on the life forces of the plants. Alfred Whittle and William Brinker, successful Carna- tion growers, recommend ashes from wood and burnt sods as valuable fertilizers for the benches. Mr. Brinker. avers as an experience that wood ashes have the noticeableeffect of inten- sifying the respective colors of Carnation flowers. Foreign agents, it has long been known, has marked eflect upon the color of flowers, as is especially seen in the Hydrangea bloom. FIELD SOIL FOR CARNATIONS. should be of a clayey nature, well enriched and pulverized, with a porous sub-3oil or underdrained. For the roots of Car- nations to "ramhle/' as one writer puts it, in a rich sandy soil is to induce that condition of development described under the head of ''large plants'' which above all things is to be avoided. temperature for CARNATIONS. For continuous bloom and healthy plants on the benches from October until July, the night temperature should be about 45 degrees and the day temperature some 20 degrees higher. The Florist may be enabled to realize more out of his crop, if he can obtain the bulk of the bloom earlier in the season, or on stated occasions, when both the day and night temperature can be raised some twenty degrees, but any temperature materially higher than the ones first mentioned, will be at the expense of the season's run of bloom. It is however true that it is the nature of some varieties to revel in a temperature that would be positively injurious to other kinds. CARNATION CULTURE. 155 But the artificial conditions of plant life are so easily varied, and slight variations so telling in results, that two Florists side by side and aiming at a common treatment for their respective houses would hardly reach precisely the same condition of crop, and no treatise however accurate and particular in detail, can supplement a want of exacting care and a high degres of discriminating intelligence on the part of the Florist. ROTATING CARNATIONS. If trouble besets a Carnation crop on ground in which they have been repeatedly grown, suspicion is aroused that a repetition of the crop on the same soil may be the cause. This is often important to the Forist, not but there are ample lands to rotate the small area of land required for this crop, but it may not be in condition, or under his control, or quite remote from his glass. Rotating crops is a rational and well established prac- tice in Agriculture, and every Physiological and Chemical principle relating to plant life makes the theory and practice equally applicable to Horticulture. But the comparative small space of land required to summer grow this crop makes it possible, annually, to quite fully restore all the elements taken from the ground by the crop, if we knew what they were. Lime is believed to be one of the chief ingredients most largely exhausted by a Carnation crop, and must be artificially supplied, in case of continuous culture. Two cases are reported where Carnations have been continuously grown on the same ground on which Lime was used, for ten consecutive years without disease or apparent deterioration of the plants. The Carnation industry is comparatively new. The Author bought of the first four Carnations cata- logued for sale in America, so it is not strange if there are va- rying theories and practices in their culture, but there can be 156 CARN'ATIOK' CULTURE. but one set of continuous conditions best suited to their health and highest floressence, to know and supply these con- ditions is perfect Carnation culture, hitherward an intelli- gent experience tends. HEADING-IN CARNATIONS. All the heading-in or "pruning" a Carnation plant needs is to pinch off the bud, between the thumb and fore-finger, when the stem lifts it well above the foliage. This rule applies to Carnations in all conditions whether m the cutting bench, boxes, pots, or field, if in the field it should be done with reference to the time the bloom of the plant can b^ utilized, it is considered, that disbudding plants in the field delays much further bloom about twenty days. By delaying heading-in, until this time, the least damage will be done the plant, and lateral branches are sooner ob- tained. A Carnation plant from a proper cutting is not hasty in showing a bud, if the peduncle runs quickly up, crowned with a bud, you have a worthless plant from a bastard cutting. From the "cradle to the gr'^ve," no Carna- tion plant should be mutilated by cutting ofi" its branches, pulling out the heart of the main, stem or leaf pruning, and if practiced is simply criminal plant surgery. There are but two reasons for ever wantonly wounding the smallest leaf of a Carnation plant, viz: to induce laterals, and conserve vital force. It is the gluctin, sugar, starch, &c., elaborated by the vital chemistry of the plant and deposited in the ovules, or seed (food for embryo plants) that is exhaustive of its vital forces, it is not thf? petal, or corolla, or any other botnnical part of the bud or flower, for they are all modified leaves of ihe pbmt nnd io an pxtent perform healthful functions iti the plant's economy. The marvellous flowering capacity of the double floweiing plants of to-day is owing to their being largely unproductive CARNATION CULTURE. 157 of seeds, and therefore vital force is conserved. Secondary to cut bloom, I have never been able to obtain an ounce of good seed, in a season, from twenty thousand Carna'ion p'ants. The Carnation grower need not be frightened at the appearance of a few buds on his field plants, and that they will fritter away all their I lotaning energies. Henzie is being restored lo confidence as a profitable blooming variety by a system of treatment first recommended by us four years ago, viz: tiiat it should never be disbudded in the field. Cutting off the leaves, pulling out the hearts of the stems of the s-mall plants has precisely the same effect on the plant as cutting off a pro[)Ortional quantity of their roots. There is a perfect (quilibrium in the absorbing capacity of a ipilani below the ground surface, and its exhaling capacity above the ground surface. The destruction of half of its lungs or exhaling organs discharges from service half of its feeding or absorbing (»rgans. Every Florist knows he can carry the plants from which he cuts his stock, back inro smaller pots. A plant or tree, top pruned can be equally artificially root pruned and if it is not so done nature will do it, to preserve the balance. Wonderful miniature fruit and forest trees are grown by the Chinese by a system of root pruning, the top geometri- cally proportioning its littleness to the pruned roots, so will the roots precisely proportion themselves to the pruned top. In annuals and perennials, the damage arising from the distinction of the balance between foj) and bottom^ is by their natures more easily repaired than their case with biennials. The roots of biennials perforin a different or an addi- tional duty than do the roots of the other classes, viz: the storage in the system of the plants all the elements requir- ed for its full fruition the following season. 158 CARNATION CULTURE. In the two first classes the stimulus of perpetuating of spiece is immediate, in the other continuous, and in the last class its hope is with the coming season. The Carnation is a biennial, its life in the field is the first year of its existence, its life under glass corresponds with its second season, or winter, its intervening dormant state is dispensed with, rnd its life forces made to act con- tinuously by the witchery of the Florist's art. When it is understood how vital and Uborious are the functions of the roots of a biennial t\\Q first season, it will be very clear how the least interference with them by top pruning must be irreparable, damaging to their be^t state the second season, and with Carnations that are on the benches. LARGE PLANTS. The floressence of all plants is in inverse ratio to the life forces being expended on a rank growth of foliage and stems. Experience now points a preference for a medium sized plant with good roots, fine form and well ripened shoots, as a model Carnation plant, which when transferred to the bench will yield the most bloom. The great desire has been to have large plants for lifting, this is changed: size is not the measure of a pUnt's flowering capacii}-. A large succulent growing Caruation in the field, if successfulh^ transplanted will be a rampant grower on the bench, occupy- ing the room of several medium size plants with ripened shoots. In the ratio that a Carnation has a large and watery growth of stems and leaves will it be barren of flowers. Many say their Carnations look large and healthy but do not bloom well. t:'nowden the most prolific bloomer commonly, is often complained of. Thos. Seal says ''a whole b^^d may become barr« n in time^ by taking cuttings indiscriminately, a portion from plants CARNATION CULTURE. 159 that have no flowers, such plants grow enormously, and pioduce man}' cuttii'gs all of which will prove unproduc- tive, productive parents produce but tew cuttings, this way in a few years the whole stock will become unproductive of auything but foliage and s.tem<." An unnatural growth of stems and foliage is followed by a loss of power to continue the specie by seeding, and is a di>ease, as is an unusual deposit of fatty matter, and con- st quent barrenness in an animal. EARLY LIFTING. The best average experience of American growers is epitomized in the following words of a correspondent: "I favor lifting from the 1st. to 15th. of September and pre- fer dry weather for it. I find plants take bttter lifted in dry weather, they seem to stand more in need of the w ater given them when planted on benches, and wilt less than those taken from wet soil and blight less, make liner flowers and bloom longer and better." The philosophy of early lifting and from a dry soil is, that in the cool wet weather of fall Carnations make a rapid succulent growth, after this growth when planted on drained benches and subjected to a dryer and warmer atmosphere (>f the house, the plant must re- ceive a greater shock than would have occurred had it been lifted before this rank fall growth had been made. All plants lifted in early fall have better ripened shoots, and a less watery nature, the balance of exhaling and absorbing forces is less disturbed by such lifting, and if lifted from a dry soil the plants might be said to be thirsty and will rapidly drink the water given them, and the ab- sorbing force will predominate, therefore less wilting, blast- ing buds, an easier transition to their new conditions, better flowers and longer life, because of less violence to the consti- tution of the plant. 160 CARNATION CULTURE. One grower writes: ''Early lifting obviates the dying of the leaves around the base of the plant, a source of annoy- ance v^^ith some varieties." It would be narrow to state a specific time for lifting in the widely varied climate of America. The rule for ''early lifting'' \s, as distensible as the climate. It is before the life activities of the plant are materially increased by that cool damp weather of fall, common to all sections. LIFTING WITHOUT EARTH to the roots is established by experience as practical and suc- cessful. It is a wonderful labor saving innovation on old methods. Carnations should be lifted with the least possible damage to the roots, and planted quickly after being lifted, (if the dry weather system is adopted.) It is the nature of Carnation roots to tenaciously adhere to particles of earth which is quite sufficient This mode reduces the labor of lifting and carrying Carnations, one-half over the old "ball to the root system." And at the end of the Carnation season in turning the earth on the benches the oM balls have to be picked and carried out, in handling twenty thousand plants they amounted to wagon loads. J. C. Chambers of Penna. says: "When plants have been growing in a soil of a clayish nature, special care should be taken to lift with as little dirt as possible, balls of this kind of earth will become hard on the bench, interfere with watering and damage the plant. From loauiy soil I experience no advan- tao-e in retaining dirt with the roots." Brown of Mi. higan, and Swayneof Pennsylvania, lift carefully without balls and stand the plants in tubs in which there is water, and they are thus conveyed, or carried to the houses for replanting; when planted they should be well wet and shaded for six or eight days. The leaves of a plant do not abso'-b moisture CARNATIOX CULTURE. 161 as is supposed, but shade and moisture stops exhalations by closing the stomata or mouths of exhaling vesels in the leaves. Whiting is suitable for this purpose and will shade till the first rain, or it can be made more adhesive by add- ing lime-water. DEPTH OF BENCH SOIL. The depth of bench soil now used in growing Carna- tions varies among growers from 2i to 8 inches. It should not exc-^ed 1 inches in depth, and some critical growers of this flower say 3 inches is the best depth, A.11 earth on the benches m'>re than sufiicient to obtain the best possible crop results is a useless handling of dirt, and weighting of benches. Advocates of deep bench soil say it saves water, and watering, and secures a more uniform root moisture. Advocates of shallow bench earth reply Carnations, nor other plants, want a uniform root mo'sture, but a moisture alternating with dryness, if it saves water it is at theexpense of the health of the plants, it is indusive of a sour and soggy condition of the earth, at which the Carnation sensitively revolts. It is the cau^e of what is known as ''root rot," Car- nations root but little after being benched, and but little soil is required; absolute control is obtained over the degree of bench moisture, and if uioyq fr eg lie nt watering is required, it is an evidence the plants are actively respond- ing to their best artificial conditions. There is no doubt by avoiding all unnecessary bench earth secures conditions, and a course of treatment in full harmony with the nature of the Carnation and the evolvement of its highest floral possibilities. GLADIOLI WITH CARNATIONS . Carnation growers look to the cut flowers of their benches for their profits, anything that will increase the 162 CARNATION CULTURE. product of their bench is a matter of interest to them. The new hybred Gladioli bulbs force well, and can be interspersed through a bed of Carnations on a middle bench, and will produce magnificent spikes of very salable flowers without visibly interfering with the Carnation crop. HEATING CARNATION HOUSES. The whole matter of heating by Steam or Hot Water, as to economy and covenience, has crystalized itself, with me, into this: Hot water heating is the cheapest and best up to a certain area of glass, beyond which Steam is preferable and the most economical. The amount of glass surface that constitntes the passing point from Hot Water to Steam is not so definitely determin- ed. W. R. Shelmire of Avondale Pa., says: ''We use a wa- ter back made of inch pipe in our flues which runs double for 16 feet through the brick flue near the furnace, and connects at the other end of the house with a small tank. A coil is placed in the flue which can have as many turns as is thought best and the returns ran directly from the water tank to the bottom of the water back in the flue; with this arrangement I have no inclination to change to Water or Steam. I heat houses 70 feet long, furnace at one end, per- fectly, the temperature at both ends about the same." We could name several very successful Carnation grow- ers who use cold style flues, and with them meet all the re- quirements of a perfect crop of bloom . Houses 16 to 18 feet wide and oE convenient length, are decidedly the best for Carnations, and contrary to theory in proportion to the surface obtained, much more economi- cally heated. SHIPPING. Neat Baskets of all sizes are now so cheaply procured, that many Carnation shippers are substituting them for C'AKNATIUN CULTURE. 163 boxes. The B jskets are lined and the contents covered with firm paper, the hitter snugly tied around the basket with the Florist's name on the top. It is claimed the light- ness, neatness and convenience of the package secures for it greater care in transit than a box would get. If the hand- ling conveniences of Bask-ts at both ends of the route is. added, they are certainly a valuable substitute ^or boxes, ex- cept in long distances and great danger from cold. AMATKUK CARNATION GROWERS should obtain earlu stuck cuttings of early blooming kinds, and plant them out early in the spring, a foot apart each way, cultivate and water well, and they will begin to bloom in June. Before frost lift carefully into well drained pots, keep them cool and shaded for a week, and they will con- tinue to bloom through the winter. NEW CARNATIONS. \/hen they reach the level of their true existence are modified from the Seedling Plants for better or worse, I think more f requen tly for the better. WIRE the whole length of the bench can be neatly used in lieu of stakes, and against the rafters over side benches to prevent the buds from freezing to the glass. BULBLETS of the Calla can be grown to blooming size just under and along the edges of Carnation benches, very close to the pipes, without inconvenience; also some varieties of Ferns and Begonias. CARNATION FLOWERS can be obtained under adverse circumstances and by unneces- sary methods. But the Grower that has come to stay seeks the finest results, by the neatest, least laborious and most inexpensive methods. 16^ CARNATIOi^ CULTURE. PRICE OF CARNATION FLOWERS. The price of Carnation flowers has been adv^^ncing for the last three years. The maximum and minimum whoUsale rates for 1889-90 has been $20 to |50 per M. A general complaint of a fruitful crop exists this sea- son, a larger per cent, than usual, of plants have died on the benches, and a reduced floressence of those that have lived. A very general correspondence inviting opinions as to the cause, has elicited the belief that it is owing to a wet season and insufficient underdraining in the field. DIANTHUS. The first Dianthus flowers were of a flesh color, hence the name "Carnation" was given them, meaning "flesh color." Were it possible to change the custom, a prettier and more proper name for both plant and flower would be Dianthus Plant, Dianthus Cuttings, Crimson, White or Pink Dianthus Flowers, etc. LIST OF NEW CARNATIONS Since tbe spring: of 1886, in addition to tlie list commencing: on pag^e 133. ^WHIXHCI^ASS. King Dianthus. (creigtiton.) Large pure white, very full and fra- grant, of great promise, (not on the market until spring of 1892.) Puritan, (wood bros.) White, early, good Bloomer of promising merit. White Gem. (buxton,) Large white on long stems, fringed, a vigorous grower . Silver Spray, (simmons.) White, early and free bloomer, good size, branching habit. The Bride (yalby.) White, fringed and fragrant, good habit, early and continuous bloomer. CARNATION CULTURE. 165 White Coronet, (creighton.) Great substance and good habit. Fishkill . (wood bkos . ) White of unequaled purity, long stems . Mrs. Fisher, (fisheu.) Large white. IVIrs. Harrison, (dokxeh.) White, of good substance. SCARI^fiX CLASS. Mrs.'B. Harrison. (i.ARKiN.) Scarlet, mottled with maroon, long stems. Lucia. [timme.J Type of (Tartield. Unique, [dillon.] A sport from '"Lydia flower. " Large, on long stems, never bursts. Color, Dark magneta, shaded and streaked with Carmine and light Pink. Free Bloomer, strong and vigorous. PIP>iK CLASS. Marggie Lamborn. An intensified -'Dawn,'' base of petals, a deep car- mine shading to a pure wb ite . Grace Darling, [chambers.] Good habit, long stems, early and pro- fuse bloomiT, exquisite pink color. W. E. Roland. [craig.J Pink color, profuse late bloomer. Tidal Wave, [fisher.] Cherry pmk, good size, compact, vigorous habit. Morning Ray. [larkin.] Dazzling pink, early bloomer and good habit. Christiana, [starr.] Pink color, darker than Wilder. W. F. Dreer. [starr.] Strong grower, a beautiful large carmine pink. Fred Creighton. [creighton.] Large, does not burst, a pure pink shade as Wilder. Peach Blossom, [creighton.] Color bright peach blossom. Ben. Hur. (dorner.) Blush pink. Maiden Blush, (wood bros.) White ground suifused with pink. lantha. (burrow.) Of Joliff and Mangoldshade, but larger and fuller. YEI^I^OW^ CI.ASS. Cora Collins, (briisker.) Pure lemon yellow, as large and full as the Henzie, of which it is a sport, and has all its qualities. Starlight, (hancock.) Light yellow, large on long stems, free and early . J. B. Taquier. (imported, zingiebel.) Yellow on long stems, dwarf, healthy habit. Golden Gate, (starr.) Deep yellow, free, full and double, a good grower. 166 CARNATION CULTURE. CRIMSOPi CLASS. Coronet, (ckeighton.) Crimson, large, free and fringed, early and continuous . Elmont. (kirk.) Larg-e rich crimson, free and vigorous grower. Pride of Kennett. (swayne.) Fine form, larg-e, rich crimson, good grower . Lady Rachel. (la.ijkin.) Dark saffroned, long stems, early and vigorous. Miss E. L. Taplin. (bukkow.) Velvet crimson, blooms large, strong grower . Freeman, (stahr.) Violet crimson, very sweet scented. ^WHIXE- VARIEGATED CLASS. Amy. (larkin.) White, slightly edged with carmine, long stems, vigorous grower. Volunteer, (kirk.) White, striped with rose, fringed, compact grower. YELLOl^-VARIEGAXEO CLASS. Eastern Queen, {wood bros.) Of the "Sunrise" type, shade lighter, considered better by the originators . Motor. (sTARR.) Orange and carmine, mottled. The following are sv^inging around the circle: Mrs. Keen, McKenzie, Silver Lake, Germania, Mrs. Holmes, Mable, Orient, Maud Grainger, West End, Clifton, McGowan, Geneva, Charmer, Delicata, Maggie, etc. All imported Carnations can be looked on with distrust, they have not held their own with native kind. Such ex- cellence is now attained with home varieties that it is hard to break the record. There is money and a name for the man that will do it. The new Carnations without a sponsor can safely be let alone, as being without distinctive merit. The multiplicity of Carnations is confusing to both the Amateur and Profes- sional grower. None should be regarded as meritorious, at least without the name of the originator as a guarantee for its merits. Even with this assurance second and third rate CARNATION CULTURE. 167 CarnatioDS are foisted, iiinocentl}^ on the market to the detriment of purchasers. The superiority of no new Carnation can be, determined only by close and .actual growing comparison with the , best existing standard kinds of its class. This test not being in the reach of the originators of seedlings they are apt to innocently and vainly think that their respective bantlings are the best in the world. We have grown 200 different varie- ties of Carnations for comparative purposes, and receive the bloom of most of the new seedlings, and have destroyed fond hopes by returning a vastly superior bloom of the same class of an existing standard l^ind. In this work we have listed about all the named Carna- tions that have ever appeared in America. From three to six of each of the seven classes would embrace the leading varieties now cultivated. , CHAPTER XXVI. LIFE IN CELLS. iUT of ten men, nine are satisfied with the proximate fact that a Carnation grows and blooms; the tenth ^^£5 asks how and why. He wants to know the remote cause. It isforthe*'How"and''Why" man I write this chapter. The origin and essence of Lif^ has ever eluded the philosophy of the past, and modern scientists have abandon- ed as useless a search after this hidden mystery, and con- fine themselves to studying the phenomena of Life. There is no spontaniety in Life, it is always dependent on an- tecedent Life, and sprang from a common original srerm, and its existence is coeval with the creative fiat. All Life is related, and its essence is the same, whetht^r found in the simplesfc and weakest vegetable form, or in the highest and most complex animal organisms, its structural range is from the mould on an old shoe, to the brain of a god-like Webster. Life admits of no evolution, it is as perfect in the pro- toplasm as in the highest concrete, but its methods are to evolve the most perfect complex structural form, out of the simplest cells. It is an attribute of Life to ever strive, in vegetable aud animal organizations to reach the composite and the perfect by the gateway of the simple and the plain. Life is the co-relative of Death, two uiighty forces ever playing a start- ling drama, with the globe's surface for a theatre. CARNATION CULTURE. l(3i> Life Iniilding, organizing ami combining elements: Death seeking to destroy, disorganize and dissolve them. In these contests Life yields first its weakest structures, and retreating to its strongest organisms, survives in the finest to live and strongest to beget. It is impossible to develop an embryo plant in a seed without the conduct of ihe pollen or male element, or pro- pagate Life in any of its multitudnious forms of existence without the correlation of sexes. When an ovule, or unripened seed is fertilized, a new cell is formed in it of spherical shape, unless moditied by lateral pressure. It is about the one thousandth of an inch in diameter and tilled with protoplasm, a protean compound, the walls of the cell is a corbo-hydrate. The male and female forces meet on the stigma of the Hower, which conveys through its filaments to this cell in the seed the marvelous in effects as fecundation. Life's first home in the new plant is in this primal micro- scopic cell. Th:s cell is an embryo plant of itself con. taining the forces of nutrition, growth and reproduction. Moisture and warmth are essential to germination, which is the growth of that cell in that seed, the seed lobes swell by the absorption of moisture and the sugar and dex- trine of which they are composed is dissolved by the water into liquid nourishment for the cell, this food entering the cell by transfusion through its permeable walls. This prime cell, instinct with Life, thus enforced with food, is enabled to start new cells outside of, but adhering to its walls, it reproduces by imparting to each new cell thus formed the power to vivify each other new cell having birth adjacent to these walls, and the growth of the embryo plant is the result of the multiplication of that primitive cell, and 170 CARNATION CULTURE. the rapid geometrical increase of cells, each animated with the occult essence of reproductive Life, is the method of a plant's unfoldment. The aggregatioa of cells forms cellular tissue, as is found in the pulpy portions of the leaf and soft parts of the plant. The woody part of a plant was primarily cellular tissue, but its need of a stiffening; support, compressed the cell wal!s against each other and they hardened into wood from a di- minished flow of sap. The human mind can form no c nception of Life only through its manifestations in vegetable and animal econo- mies. It can be known only as the presiding genus of organ- isms; the divinity of structures, beyond its phenomena human inquiry can never reach. It is a law of Life for prmiitive cell growth to flrst out- line the ora^an most concerned in the structure's existence. In a plant this is the leaf, the apparent complex organs of an adult plant are but modifications of this primal mould, the roots, stem, calyx, petals, stamens and pestils are but differentiated leaves. Superficially a plant is a complex organism, profoundlv, it is very simple. Cell births are most active in the parts of the plant con- cerned in the perpetuation ot: its Life, the radix and plumile are the first to lengthen in germination and capilliary tubes for sap circulation through them are formed by the break- ing down of intervening cell walls. Until the plant can draw crude sap from the earth, and elaborate it, with its leaves, it is fed with the digested food in the cotyledons, stored there by the supreme effort of the parent plant to bridge the chasm between, what to it, is the hither and thither world . CARNATION CULTUKE. ITL Life is in the cells and its law is through these units. A law of Life is structural betterment, and when a plane of betterment is reached, to maintain it through the law of like bt^getments. Life springing from primal germ has a colfinion relation- ship, notwithstanding its present multiplications, and seem- ingly diverse manifestations. All vafieties in the animal and vegetable kiiigfloms, are but difterent planes of organized progress, order, genera and classes are only difterent degrees of plant divelopment, which may become so diiferent and fixed that they will not even cross with each other. Life cells are ever multiplying in the protoplasm of the world's womb, and starting through the eternities on their unrolling race. The Carnation as a product of the immeasur- able past, its strain of Life after billions of years and bil- lions of structural improvements may perfect a nerve home for an intelligencfC, ascent is the law, but descent will occur with unfavorable environments. Through countless ages Life has been multiplying organs and perfecting tissues, when successive planes of excellence have been reached there has followed the phenomena of growth, reproduction, sensibility, will, memory and wisdom. The highest known structural perfectibility is the human brain, though this wondrous organism anew entity is made manifest. It has taken ages of Life ettbrt to evolve the brain, its cell structure comprises the gathered betterments of all cycles of time, it is monumentally majestic as the present culmination of God's grand method of physical unfoldment, through this structure the Soul nhenomena is studied. It is there enthroned, striving for an eden-felicity, aspiring to im- mortality and grasping in its sweep of thought the universe of matter and of mind. 172 CARNATION CULTURE. Life and Soul are distinct e/f titles^ e'deh as perfect at crea- tions, dawn as they are to day, but the measure of their manifestations is in the ratio of the perfecti- bility of the stractiire; for untold ages of the world's being, the latter was so low that Soul was' not manifest at all. Structural perfection will continue in the mighty future to tJiiii the pirtition between this and the other world, until confines are broken down and the dividing waters are ever sliadowed by going and "returning sails." A plant absorbs and exhales and through these processes growth by cells is evolved. All plants absorb food from the earth in liquid form, the iron, sulphur, sodium, lime, etc, found in the f)lant are held insolation in the water that comes in contact with its roots, the ash or inorganic p a*ts of a plant is from 1 to 8 per cent of its weight, while the volatile or organic parts amount to from 92 to lili per cent. A vegetable burned resolves itself into air excepting its ash, showing it is chiefly compose 1 of compounds of oxygen, hydroi^en, carbon and nitroo:en. The crude alimentary elements are carried from the roots, through the stem of the plant by capilliary tubes, or cell transfusion, to the leaves to be elaborated by these organs and adapted to cell growth. The leaf of a plant consists of a skeleton oi woody frame work to maintain expanse of surface, intervening is a soft cellular tissue, on the cuticle, of which there are innum- erable stomata, or mouths, which correspond to the opening to the lungs of an animal. It is estimated that the number of stomata is3().00() to a square inch of leaf surface. Through these mouths an immense quantity of watery vapor and gases are exhaled, carbonic acid gas of the air CARNATION CULTURE. 173 enters through these openings, and is decomposed by chlo- ryphie or leaf green, and the carbon fixed in the structure and the oxygen set free and exhaled, this process is the re- verse of what takes place in animals; with them oxygen is appropriated by the lungs and carbonic acid gas set free. A man requires 250 square feet of air per hour, to fur- nish him a supply of oxygen, a plant a proportionate amount to supply it with carbonic acid gas. The hir cells in the lungs of a man, over the walls of wtiich his bloos promotes evaporation, while cold and moisture check it. Leaves never absorb water, but water sprinkled over a flagging plant closes the stomata, and stops evaporation and the plant revives by its system being filled with sap absorbed by the roots, so, darkness closes these doors, and in the morn- ing plants are bright and tinged with juices; darkness is fatal to the formation of the green color, this chloryphie in the cuticle of the leaf discharges an important function in fixing carbon, and it requires sun light to do it, artificial light has no effect. A plant has no heart to pump a circulation through its system, the transmission of juices throughout its economy is effected by chemical and mechanical forces independent, cli- rectly, of Life. The evaporation of sap from tne leaf surface in propor- tion as the exhaustion of the air behind the circulation if per- fect it represents a draining force from the roots of fifteen 17J: CARNATION CULTURE. pounds to the sqa ire iacli. Capillary attraction uses flues or a^ceni smiU tabe^ independent oi: an atmospheric pres- sure. Endosmo-es and exosmoses transfers fluids from one sack or cell to another cell or sack, through their permeable walls and equalizes the density of i he contents of all the cells into a homogenous constancy. It is a law of Life to divert active cell growth to repair a creation or fortify ^gaii.st dissolution. A Carnation cutting (^or any other cutting) embeds hundreds of cells, each per- vaded with Life, the cutting is planted in wet sand to hold it uptight, and retain moisture and is fre^^ from damaging impurities^ The cutting is shaded and sprayed, to close the stoinata, and stop evaporrttion, the- cut surface is soon covered with caloused cells, which build one on the end of the other, and are thus rapidly elongated into roots. When growth is reached in an annual or biennial plant Life begins to feel impending death, cell growth becomes ac- tive to continue specie, and is directed to floressence and seed- ing. The abortive elibrtsof double flowers to vitalize seed in- creases venereal activities and multi]>lies a succession of bloom. Health in an animal is physical unconsciousness, in a plant it is the active correlation of Life and nature's forces. Some of nature's force^ are as follows: It is heat and warmth that awake the dormant life in a seed, it is warmth that converts, and water that dissolves the sugar and gluten in the cottynons of Life's first food. Heat, attraction and transfusion circulate Life's juices. Warmth and light stir Life's pulses to activity. Dark- ness and moisture quiet them to rest. Air elaborates Life's blood. Chemical laws decompose carbonic acid gas and fixes the carbon in the plant and elim- inates the ox3^gen. CARNATION CULTURE. 175 Nature dissolves the minerals in water, heat turns that water into vapor, and lime, iron iodine etc, is lodged as seda- mentary bones in the plaut's system. Dr^'ness flattens the cells into a wood}^ support for the plant. liees vitalize the ovules by dusting the stigma with pollen from the anthers. Sunlight hues the petals and paints the leaves. So in the economy of a plant, Life performs but an es- sential little, but its health is the active and natural response of these two forces. Benches start at the nodes, or joints, at which points cir- culation by cell transfusion must b^" rapid and confused from_ diverging currents, this complexity of inter cell communion diiferntly compounds the chemical sensitizing elements of the petals of the flower of the branch, and the sun will paint an- other color from the flower of the lenial parent stem. When this branch is propagated frcm, and the color becomes perma- nent, it is called a ''Sport.'' The petals of all plants are pure white when they receive their sensitizing bath of nitrates, in the d;irk closet of the cnlyx, which at the proper moment opens its valves and exposes them to the camera of the sun, and they are in- stantly colored. Shaded, flaked, or penciled as life's forces have distributed and combined in them, the sensitive chemical agents to respond to mystic sunlight. When plant life buds a love ditty, nature photographs a flower. This inquiry into some of the phenomena of Life has been on a line of vegetable organization of which the Carna- tion is a type. The Carnation is a biennial^ which signifies its natural Life embraces two seasons with an intervening period of winter rest. lit) CARNATION CULTURE. ^iinuals^ Biennials and Perennials are convertable plant characters by climatic iDfluences. When the character of a Biennial is well defined and unmodified by manipulation, Life in it makes no effort to propagate itself the first season, but Life's forces are almost intelligently at work for this end, the second season, its labors are to ripen and uidture a structural organization to with- stand the low temperature of winter and fully prepare it for the responsibilities of patt^rnity, this is chiefly done by storing its cellular system and interstitial places with all the food elements, in a concentrated form, for fructification, when its winter is over. An hibernating animal, before its winter sleep, grows enormously fat by the deposit of surplus adipose matter in its cellular tissue, which is taken up by a system of absorb- ing vessels to meet the needs of the animal, and it comes out poor in the spring. A Biennial is a hibernating plant, its cells are filled (in season) with starch, sugar dextrine, gluten, etc, in a solidified form before its dormant period, and when possessed of firm- ness thus given, it is said to be a ''ripened plant." This sur- plus nutrinieat is gr,idually dissolved by the watery circula- tion of the plant as its needs require, and is the chief sup- port of floressence in Carnations on the benches. A high temperature in a Carnation house increases evap- oration from the leaves and hastens the circulation, and tnis store of nutriment is more quickly dissolved and consumed, and such plants fail in floressence sooner in the season than if they had been subjected to a lower temperature. A watery growth in a Carnation dissolves and diverts celj deposit to growth, hence a succulent Carnation plant goes into winter quarters without this reserve food force for flow- ers, and is comparatively worthless. CARNATION CULTURE. 177 Biennials excel annuals or perennials in profusion of bloom and the doubleness of their corollas. A Ca. nation plant that 3^ields 100 blooms of 50 petals, each averaging ^ inch of surface, will cell weave in a single season, sixteen square feet of petal canvas, all perfumed and sensitized by Life's photogrophy, and ready to be painted by nature's Raphael, with sunbeams from his brush. Some mysterious features relating to cultivating the Carnation is explained by its Biennial character. A Carnation plant can he lifted in the fall, full of buds, without earth to the roots, and if treated properly will not flag or even blast its buds, while with favoring conditions and all skill a perennial rose cannot be so lifted without dropping its foliage and sulking for a couple of months, nor can annuals be successfully lifted under the same con- ditions. It is because the Carnation is a biennial, the life's labor of the plant, for the year is about over, its duties are chiefly performed, life's activities are lessening and the coma of its wititer is fast coming on, its system is a store house filled with all the rich and elaborated materials necessary to fruct- ify its seed and propagate its species the following season. A man lives and yearns for immortality, a plant grows and blooms to shun oblivion; this is the only end and aim of any plant's existence. A flower is the heat of a plant's passion, it paints its colors and distills its nectar to cajole the Bees to revelry, and dust its stigma with the pollen of love, that it may beget new Life, and live again in vital seeds. To fructify, is to enact creation's wonder; it rounds the cycle of a plant's ex- istence, and the flower dies to a sensuous melody intoned by hummino- winss. 178 CARi^ATION CULTURE. Some believe plant Life in its home of cells, can feel a rudimentary thiill of pleasure, 'Hhat it enjoys the air it breathes'' and the '^meanest insect dies familiar with the sense of grief y A Carnation will sustain itself in two inches of bench earth and yield ^rand floral results, it is so, chiefly because it is a biennial, the wealth of its being was gathered, the first season of its existence, the lieavy duties of its roots have been performed, they do not further grow, nor need much soil, little is left for them to do but to drink the nouiishing wine of plant life and sustain a circulation electric with amarous activities. It has pigments fur colors, gums for odors, corollas for canvass, and magic sunlight for pencils; its system is a work- shop, its Life an Angelo, mixing perfumes and painting glories. CHAPTER XXVIL THE N^ATIONAL FLOW EK. MiiLL Nationalities have their Diviuities of Sentiment, S^ their Flags, their Flowers and National Anthems; rj^^ dumb Deities but whose pantomimic oratory stir the pulse like the blast of a bugle, and make the air electric with patriotic feeling. America has her Starry Banner, Soaring Eagle, National Hymn, but has not yet chosen her Symbol Flower. This Flower should be comparatively hardy, of easy culti- vation, of lasting qualities when cut, and easily produced and acquired in all parts of the country of which it is emble- matic. It should be a Flower whose fragrance and grace of form would gratify the highest taste, to awaken deepest sentiments of love for native land and home. It should be a Flower suited to general decoration and to personal adornment, and the varieties of which would afford different pronounced colors, that political parties, processions, societies, delegations and clubs might be easily distinguished b}^ the chosen color of t\\Q\r Bouto7iie7'es. It should be a Flower that could be readily and pro- fusely obtained on all National or State occasions, or when ever it was desirable to suggest the sentiments of Patriotism. It should be a Flower reverential in name and demo- cratic in its associations with the past, and one that reaches its grandest unfoldments in the land that selects it as a Symbol. 180 CARKATION CULTURE. It should be a Flower whose range of colors would weave into expressive emblems of a people patriotism, and of their joys, or sorrows. In the wide range of Floral Candidates, none has been suggested that will compare with the Flowers of the Dian- thus genera of plants, in possessing these qualifications. DiantJius Barhatus^ or Sweet William, is a perennial, crowned with a fiat top cluster of flowers of various colois. Diantlius Plumaris, Pheasant eye Piuk, BuLch Pink, Cushion Pink, &c., is a hardy perennial, blo( niing early in the season, flowers pink and white; single and double. Diantlius Clii/iesus, is a biennidl, but flowers the first season from seed, aff'ording double and s'ngle flowers of a vaiiety of colors. D. Heddiwiggi, D. Lancinatus, D.Dia- dematus, D. Quertii, Florist's Pinks, Picotee Pinks and Scotch Pinks are sports of the two foregoing kinds. Dianthus Cari/ophyllus. or clove scented Pmk, is the parent of the grand Carnation of to-day. Here are annuals, biennials and perennials of easy propagation by seed or division of rooti, yielding their bloom from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf and univer.-ally esteemed by the American people. The Carnation Pink is the typical flower of the class to symbolize a Nation's Sentiments. Dianthus is derived from the Greek word Dio, (divine;) antlilis, (flower;) its name associates it with a form of Government that approaches nearest to the divine ideal. Dianthus in History is coeval with the first eftorts for free government in Greece. Mythol- ogy says Dianthus sprang from the blood of rival lovers. Jeane Sisley says the matchless specie of Carnations of today originated with Allegatieie about the close of our civil war. Practical license might almost permit us to say they sprang from the blood of rival brothers. Carnations CARNATION CULTUKE. 181 are practically the manor born, no imported plant lives in America only long enough to prove its inferiority to native kinds. Jolilf whose paternity is doubted, is excelled by Mrs. Mangold: none of the imported yellows compare with But- tercup. We have sent Carnation plants to Lyons, France, where Sisley says they originated. America is the climatic homeof the. Carnation as England is of the Pansy. Refer- ring to pages 4 and 160 of this work, electrotypes taken from life, will show the wonderful evolvement of this flower, in twenty years under the fostering influence of American en vironments. It is a flower that has seven claj-ses of colors. White, Pink, Scarlet, Crimson, Yellow, Yellow-Variegated and White-Variegated. It is of the most lasting nature when cut, and whose size, form, and wealth of colors marvellously adapts it to per- sonal adornment, civic decorations, or martial displays, and by its aggregation the most expressive designs can be made illustrative of a people's joy or of their sorrow. It is the Floral cosmopolite of the Republic, obtainable in large quantities every day in the year. Hundreds of acres of glass are devoted to raising this flower in mid-winter to gratify the people's adoration for it. It is tacitly the National flower today, it has been elected by a people's love, and is waiting to be crowned as the Symbol of a people's feeling. In the days of Leonidas, the Washington of Greece, Dianthus had but five petals; it has kept pace with the tread of free Government, now within the union of its unbroken Calyx more than forty loyal flower-leaves of state are happy around their federal anthers. A friend of mine visiting Palestine, brought me a Cyclamen bulb from Jerusalem, a little earth from Calvary, and a phial of water from Jordan, 182 CARNATION CULTURE. as the bulb grew how marvellously near did it bring the memories of the Son of Mary. Mind is moved by the simplest agencies. An old Flag was lowered at Fort Sumpter and with the lightning flash of thought, there rolled on the sea of human mind a wave of passion and of patriotism that broke among a million graves. The apotheoses of Dianthus as the National Flower, well shroud it with the romance of symbolism. Its form and color will possess the power as no other flower would to stir in the mind strong emotions of love for native land, while the sorcery of its perfume will relight dim visions of the loyal past that lingers in the weird twilight of memory. It will be the embodiment of the spirits of '76, and grown in the soil gathered from the graves of Patriots and the battlefields for Liberty. Its corolla will be an illuminied metaphor of the 4th. of July, glowing with rainbow promises of the rights of man and freighted with the sacred memories of Mt. Vernon; its form will be a living censer swinging its perfume around the Altars of a Liberty born at Yorktown, and a Union Saved at Appomattox. n^l /( \ CHAPTER XXVITI. CAUSE AND CURE OF THE VERSATILE HABITS OF CARNATIONS. VERSATILE HABITS. Classes, Orders, Genera and Species, of the Botanies are but different planes of plant development. Species raay be slightly varied by cultivation, but their distinctive features will not be wholly lost. Races, varieties, and variations, are differences which exist in species. Races are striking differences in a species, and may be propagated by seed. Varieties are a less im- portant distinction than Races and can only be continued by cuttings. Variations are still of a slighter difference occasioned by heredity, climate, soil, moisture, etc. Occasionally a new and an advanced specimen of plant life steps to the front of the old ranks and becomes the parent of a new species. Alegatiere nearly forty years ago by hybridization created a new species of carnation possessing qualities differing from either of its parents. This species was a new coin- age, fresh from the mint, bearing the devise of a new be- ing, with the mark of biennialism impressed upon its nature. It was born amid the rigors common to the fortieth degree of north latitude, and possessed comparatively a hardy nature, profuse blooming habit, a range of colors, and a fragrance of corolla, scarcely equalled by any flower that blooms on earth. After forty years of existence amid unnatural environ- ments and the artificial manipulations of man; this new species of plants has become versatile in its habits, and its culture variable and uncertain. Some varieties will do well for a time and then fail in the same hands. Some seasons certain kinds will bloom rS4J CARNATrON CITLTXTRE- early and profusely, then flower late and sparsely. N'ina growers will fail with Buttercup and the tenth man will succeed to perfection; a particular kind in one grower's, hands flowers continually;^ in another grower's charge it will bloom in crops. Edwardsii and De Graw are still esteemed valuable sorts by some good growers, while with many they are abandoned as worthless;, a few have given up the culture of carnations, being unable to further suc- ceed with them, A correspondent in the "American Florist" says,Milander and Stilow, are neighboring florists^ growing cut flowers at Niles Center, for the Chicago mar- ket. Milander grows Henzie to perfection, while Stilow cannot grow it with success,, and Stilow^ grows Garfield well, and Milander cannot. Correspondents in Floral Journals have become feelingly animated and sarcastic in affirming and denying the merits and demerits of the same varietv. Carnation plants may be diseased, or inherently and constitutionally weak, cuttings taken from such parents,, by heredity, will partake of the nature of the parents, but this is not versatility. There are plenty of varieties of un- questioned health and vital stamina. The Ben Davis npple flourishes in Kansas^ Missouri and Southern Illinois; the Baldwin in Michigan, Northern! New York and Ohio. This is not versatility of this species of fruit, but the two kinds of apples are adapted by nature to the degrees of mean annual temperature of the two- Itatitudes. It is the nature of Snowden, as treated, to bloom in> August, of Quaker City to bloom on the bench in Aprils for Eureka and Field of Gold to bloom late and give but a single crop of flowers, for sea shell to bloom in the field and almost refuse to do so under glass; these are varieties of species so decreed by nature the moment the seed from which they sprung were vitalized, and are not versatilities. The distinction should be clearly kept in mind that varieties of species with any inherent natural peculiarity they may possess are in no sense a "versatility" of that species. There are late and early, red and yellow, long and flat shaped apples^ these are varieties of the species. •CAllNAT I ON CULTURE:. 1 85 Ther-e are early and late, red and white, long and short 'Stemmed carnations, these are varieties and not versatilities of the species.; but in the natural play of the fructifying forces, within the boundry of the race, the limit toward annual ism was touch in Snowden and perennialism in Henzie. THE CAUSE OF VERSATILE HABITS. The only end and aim of any plant existence is to per- petuate and multiply itself. Annuals do this in a single vegetating season and die; Biennials accomplish this re- sult in two growing seasons, with an intervening winter. Perennials are slow in the line of reproduction, and many years elapse before they fill the purpose 'of their creation. Biennials doubtless were once perennials, and forced by the worlds geological changes to perform the object of their life in a lessened period pf time, and unable to reach it as an annual ;they adapted themselves to the climate con- ditions of the Temperate Zone and crowded the effort of years into two seasons Biennials have the simplified organs and functions of an hibernating animal, to all in-- tents and purposes biennials are hibernating plants. An hibernating animal fills its cellular tissue with fat; an elaborated and condensed nourishment for its winter food, which is slowly consumed during its torpid life. Biennial plants act on precisely the same principle. In addition to their growth they store their cells and intersti- tial spaces of stem, roots and leaves, with rich protean com- pounds, to perfect their bloom and mature their seed the following season. So complete and full is this supply that little is required of life's function thereafter but a condition of health, and a watery circulation to dissolve and distrib- ute through their systems this stored and concentrated plant food. A biennial cabbage, if its roots are cut off and the stalk set in water in the spring, will bloom and mature seed from the elements stored in the stalk the pre vious season. If an hibernating animal, after its system is filled with fat, winter food, was transported to a winterless climate; the supply of fat would be exhausted in the con- tinued exercises of life, and the animal would sport its hibernating character into one of perennial activity. l86 CARNATION CULTURE. A biennial carnation, after its system is stored with con- densed protean food to carry it through a sluggish winter life and active after fructifying season, is transported fronrt the field to a winterless greenhouse; its life forces con- tinue active, even quickened by the stimulus of the heat and moisture. It expends its garnered nutriment in a pro- fuse floresence and dies at the close of biennial life, or sports its character into a flowerless perennial. H. Vick, an energetic and an experimenting florist of this city, took Henzie's cuttings, treated them as usual, lifted and benched in the fall. They afforded the usual winter crop of bloom, Vick thought he would carry the large bench of plants through the following summer and winter, and it was treated to that end. The plants looked healthy and vigorous, and gave much promise all the time, but few flowers any of the time; they were thrown out in the spring perfect specimens of health, and a notable in- stance of a winterless greenhouse transmuting a florescent biennial into a flowerless perennial. Annuals, Biennials, and Perennials, are coinvertable plant characters Plants have belts, zones and isothermal lines "which afford them their natural environments, and within which their characters are firmly fixed; but plants taken north or south of their climatic home, or artificially con- ditioned at home, readilv sport their character; adapting themselves to their new surroundings, if taken south of their natural zone, biennials sport into perennials. The annual Nasturtion of the north is a perennial shrub in South America. Biennials moved north run into annuals, in remote artic lands they are so intensely annual that they germinate, grow Bnd perfect seed in six weeks; there being eleven month of wintry night between the vegetating seasons. Carnations along and north of the thirty-ninth degree of north latitude in Europe and America are biennials. The following propositions cannot be seriously disputed. Plants moved north or south of their natural habitations sport their true type of character. The type of change of a biennial if moved south, is into that of a perennial; such a change is characterized by vigor of growth and general loss of floresence. CARNATION CULTURE. 187 Greenhouse treatment of a biennial is in effect the same on it, as a removal of it south of its native zone. The decrease of the floresence of a biennial is in the ratio of completeness of the transformation of its character into a perennial. The value of carnations depends on maintaining for them their true biennial type of character. A cause most frequently assigned for the versatile habits of carnations is that they run out, and give different results in different stages of their decadence. That they become often com- paratively worthless is true, but another cause must be dis- covered than age, through the imaginary devitalizing pro- cess of propagation by cuttings. Peter Henderson held that "there is no degeneracy of life force in continual propagation by cuttings." There may be by grafting; for then there is a conflict of dissimilar life currents in varieties. All fluctuation in crops of carnation bloom resulfes from a warped or deflected character of the plaut. Carnation plants with their true character well maintained do not degenerate in vigor, size or quantity of flowers, but im- prove in all these respects. Growers of seedlings know that often several years elapse before they reach the level of their best estate, and the change is mostly in the direc- tion of improvement. A few of the standard sorts culti- vated today were years in maturing qualities that forced them to the front. Mr. F. Dorner, in his address on carnations at the Toronto Convention (1891), deplores the versatility of car- nation and alleges the cause to be "the perpetuity of growth and bloom through cuttings, and the cure; to grow all plants from seed, for the life of a carnation is but six years, and seedlings will produce twice as many flowers as the old kinds." As to the age and usefulness of carnation plants, and their floresence as compared with seedlings, Mr. D's state- ments are true if the plants have transformed their character; but not so,if they have maintained their true biennial type. From a wholesale list of carnations issued, 1892, contain- ing seventy varieties, the cream of the kinds now culti- va'ed; as near as I could estimate, their ages were five, ten, fifteen and twenty years, and about one-fourth in each l88 CARNATION CULTURE. class. Nothing but an increased size of flower, and floresence could keep a twenty year old carnation contest- ing supremacy with the grand new seedlings cf today. Degeneracy means loss of vigor, decay. No such a condi- tion exists in carnation plants that have become worthless through a modified type of character; on the contrary they are marvelous specimens of vigor and luxuriant growth, they have lost their flowering habit and gained growing stamina. Thomas Seal, a close observer and a veteran ex-grower says, *'a whole bed of carnations may become barren in time by taking cuttings indiscriminately, a portion from plants that have no flowers, such plants grow enormously and produce many cuttings, all of which will prove un- productive; while productive parents produce but few cut- tings. In this w^ay a whole stock will in a few years become unproductive ©f anything but foliage and stems." Edwardsii and De Graw are the grandparents of all the carnations in America. For the increase in the size of flowers that twenty years of cultural improvement has wrought in these kinds; see the first electro type of car- nation flowers on this continent, life size, on page 125, and compare with the fine florwers these kinds produce today. The pure biennial type of character of these old kinds has been well maintained in the hands of a few- good growers, so the cause of versatility does notarise from age, or degeneracy through continual propagation by cut- tings. The continuity of life is the same in a seedling as in a cutting, there is even more degeneracy in the former than in the latter. The law of hereditary weakness asserts it- self stronger in animal and vegetable coition and concep- tion, than in any other act; not more than one seedling in five hundred has equal merit with its parents and not one in a thousand superior merit. Out of all the seedlinga ever raised in America not over two hundred have dis- tinctive merit. New life, fresh vigor and great floresence does not ex- clusively attach to seedlings. Carnations may perennialize and lose their character to flower, freely but never lose except by disease, life vigor. CARNATION CULTURE. 189 Plants seed and produce the best progeny when sur- rounded by their truest natural conditions. The seed of a true biennial carnation, — others will not seed — will produce a plant of pure natural type. From this fact springs the idea they that possess fresh vigor. Nature never adopts a degenerating process in the con- tinuance of species; but writes Excelsior on every arch that spans the world of life. The Zoophyte Kingdom, and all unicellular life, is continued by division of self. In the ratio that carnation plants are of a large and suc- culent growth will they be barren of flowers, and this is just the ratio of their convertion into perennials. If their true biennial type of character is well maintained, they be- come more florescent, and evolve larger flowers, by proper culture. Mr. Dorner said, "seedling plants about which I was in doubt as to throw away, on furthur testing came out on top." Thus progress attaches after plant development, and does not all center in the abstract act of fecundation. The law of development is stamped by nature on the character of carnations, and exercises its force on old vari- eties as well as new seedlings. By reason of unnatural green house methods, carna- tions are continually oscillating between inducing and re- sisting forces, —for and against — true and false types of character. Their parents were perennials and their suscept- ability is naturally great to any influence that would drift them toward perennialism. At the Buffalo Convention of the American Carnation Society, Feb.1892, E.Swayne said, that he would like to have it explained why several thousand Snowdens that he had re- fused to bloom, grew extravagantly. Mr. Scott said he had a similar experience, his plants became bushy trees with scarcely a single flower on them. The plants in question had simply sported their biennial plant character; under green house methods they had perennilized. Flowers, seed, procreation, death, are all ignored by a biennial when it clothes itself in the vest- ments of perpetual life. The law governing these plants Goefthe has enunciated as controling life in organisms,, endorsed by Darwin;, vizu 190 CARNATION CULTURE. "In order to expend on one side, nature has to economize on the other side.'^ Fruit and flowers gain in size and quality, for this ex- pense nature saves her force; by blasting their seed. In a cow that gives much milk; for this, nature economizes by refusing to deposit fat. In carnations plants of preternatural growth and vigor, nature frugally stops the costly expense of bloom. There is but little versatility in the growth or life forces of carnation plants; it is their reproductive nature, that is so susceptable to the slight maligna influences, that is complained of. Goethe's law. *'It was Goethe whose inspired genius first lighted upon the bottom fact of botany, namely; that each plant has but two parts — leaf and stem. The reproductive portions — pistil, petal, stigma, calyx and corolla — are only modified leaves. The flower is only a leaf modified for reproduc- tive purposes." In the world of life Nature never creates new organs,but adapts old ones to new necessities. The first step Nature takes to convert a biennial carnation into a perennial is to stop modifying green leaves into the botanical parts of flowers. This done, the olant takes on perpetual life, with little necessity to bloom, or reproduce its species. Plants that live the longest beget the least; the giant oak that lives centuries annually drops but few small acorns. There are two controling activities in every plant and animal; viz: ''to live" and ''to beget;" to live that they may beget. These two forces are based upon the reproductive germ cells and the adventitious cells in the organism. In the equipoise of these two forces there is perfect health. The dominancy of the life force is at the expense of the power to beget. All animals that are fleshy through ex- cess of life activities are passionateless and barren. All carnation plants that excell in luxuriant foliage are barren of flowers; while plants productive of flowers are correspondingly barren of leaves; for they have been modified into pistils, petals, stigmas, etc. Slight causes are sufficient to arrest the modification of leaves. The latter stages of a carnation's transformation of character is ■CARNATION CULTURE. I91 •easily detected bv the eye, the early stashes much less so, but ranges from the interruption of the production of a single flower to absolute barrenness. Under all circum- stances the redundency of leaves is in the inverse ratio to the productiveness of bloom. The Eden fieud that betruiles carnations from their high estate with the promise of perennial life does it thro' excess of heat, rich soil, and moisture. Goethe's law is universal, and applies to plants in every zone. Any unnatural condition, or disturbance of the balance of life's forces is adequate to arrest the transition of leaves into flowers. Carnations surrounded by false environments must be very sensitive to scores of small and unnoticed influences, rendering them capricious in their habits. It is those unseen causes that has shrouded their versatility in such mysterious wonderment. The Botanical department of Cornell University has tested the cultivation of plants and flowers under the in- fluenc:e of the electric light. The first effect was the enormous increased rate of growth in stems and foliage; but when it came to seed, fruit and flowers the matter was very different. The plants that grew by daylight were away ahead in all the attributes of virility, and in every instance the reproductive powers of the plants were strongly and prejudicallv affected; flowers, fruit and seed were all sacrificed to mere foliage and rapidity of increase of general size. To secure uniform results in growing carnations, the well established laws of plant life must be regarded, viz.: '^Artificial conditions should conform as near as possible to natural environments .'^ ''The highest vossihility in vlant unfoldment is supvlemental, and must be made along the line o-f character nature stamped upon the plantJ' If it is natural for a plant, demanding for its best de- velopment a mean annual temperature of fifty dee'T'ees, to profusely modify its leaves into flowers-; it must be un- natural for it to do the same thing when subjected to a mean annual temperature of 75 degrees. 192 CARNATION CULTURE. Chas. Starr, whose name will ever be familiarly asso- ciated with the early history of carnation growing in America, wrote to me a few days before the fatal illness which terminated his life (Dec. 24, 91,): "Buttercup is do- ing better with me than it has for years, caused I think by more robust and natural treatment given to the plants and cuttings of this variety." If the continuance of stock was divorced from forced flowering plants on the benches and a natural method of treatment adopted in keeping with the foregoing laws; within two years all preternatural sensitiveness of carna- tions to occult causes, inducing versatility, would be re- moved and a grand step taken in the direction of uniform results from varieties. E. Lonsdale says: "a friend writes me that with himMrs. Fisher produces four times as many flowers as Lizze Mc- Gowen, now with me the first is worthless, while the latter behaves well." This illustrates how speedily carnations contract depraved habits; when it is remembered three years ago these sportive daines kissed their mother nature in the arms of maternity, and robed in white, knelt at the shrine of virtue, as they entered the gates of their lustrous and inconstant lives. TEMPERATURE. No law is better settled in Geographical Botany than the following: '^A certain mean anmtal temperature is re- quired by each -particular svecies of plants for their development, and their highest estate will admit of hut a slight variation in the number of degrees of the temperature required-'' Plants are not affected by l;irge temporary fluctuations in temperature, but are very sensitive to any material deviations in the mean annual temperature. The wine grape will admit of but 9 degrees; sugar cane and Plantain tree of but 4, and the cotton plant of but 5 degrees of varia- tion. Through all the vegetable kingdom an increase or de- crease of a few degrees of mean annual temperature outlines new zones, and fills them with a different flora. CARNATION CULTURE, I93 A case illustrating the extreme sensitiveness of plant mature to variation. of temperature and required conditions, is a species of Origanum discovered rn a single rock in the island of Armogos in the Graecian Archipelago, by Tournefort, in 1700; eighty years afterwards the plant was found in the same island, and on the same rock, and no where else in the world, which means no other spot had the same mean temperature and other co-existing condi tions as existed on that rock. It is not strange that carnations subjected to fluctuations of mean annual temperature as wide as those of the Tem- perate and Torrid zones should be versatile in their habits. The carnation belt so far as it is developed does not embrace more than five degrees north of the 39 degree of latitude, and is much better defined on its southern, than on its northern border, proving the sensitiveness of this species of plants to lateral climatic influences. I mean by this belt a zone of land four orfi^^e hundred miles wide, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, and possibly belting the globe, and not a " Spot-'^ No seedling carnation of any merit has yet originated south of the 39 degree, Carnation Peter Henderson was scDt out by a firm of Louisville, Ky., but was originated by Carleton in Ohio, no plant of advanced merit is likely to originate only where the most favorable environments for the species exist. The frailities of carnations is most easily reached througli the seductive flattery of heat, they yield their vir- tues to the amorous embrace of perennial warmth, and be- come capricious and inconstant \vantons, the phvlacti^ charm against theii- sportive nature, and all their maladies is the annual mean frigidity of the fortieth degree of north latitude; except when on the bench and being forced for flowers. Biennials are distinct from annuals and perennials, in the profusion of their bloom, the first seasons growth is spent in gathering force for the final efforts to perpetuate themselves. The Agave, Banana and all fruits and flowers that die after parturition are marvelous in their last extravagant efforts to continue themselves. Two vegetating seasons are the span of life allotted to biennial carnation plants and the best evidence that they 7^4 CARNATION CULTURE. have lived unspotted and unsporting lives is for thennr then to die. For biennials to live beyond their time means- a corrupted nature, to die means a new birth. Mythology says that the twins Pollux and Castor were granted by fate with but one immortality, so they lived and died alternately every year. There is but one immortal- ity for carnations, the reciprocal succession of life and death, in parents and progeny, such are the amazing processes of nature; yesterday tlie plant was in the vigDr of its sun fed glory, todav it is in its shroud of painted petals,, throwing kisses of incense to im admiring world as it gaily enters the gates of another life. Death is nature's sig- net on its rounded being, a new biennial consecration at the alter of creations wonders. A fresh baptism in per- fumed irridiscence behind the jasper walls that hide all human sight. BENCHING MATURE PLANTS. An unquestioned law in Vegetable Physiology is: "Each species of plants requires a certain number of days to comvlete its course of vege- tation and growth, and the mean temverature multiplied hy the number of days gives the sum of heat the plant requires for its develovment if the mean temveratureis lowered the number of days must he increased, if increased the number of days must be diminished/' Soils, latitude, bodies of water, isotherms, etc., are large natural agencies in controling the mean annual temper- ature of the seasons in various localities. Carnations are planted in the field as soon as the ground can be prepared in the spring, not because the plants need a long season; but because the cool moist weather of spring is favorable for the plants taking root. Biennials do not require a long season to perfect ripening of the plants. In estimating the length of the season for a carnation plant, it must be remembered that the rooted cutting, when set out starts with at least two months of season, as compared with growth from seed. Geo. Hancock, Mich., says, "I struck cuttings late in May and planted directly in the field from the cutting CARNATION CULTURE. I95 bench in June, and on Nov. ist, they were bushy plants well covered with buds." The average length of field life of carnation plants is four months; if two months more are added to them by rea- son of them being rooted cuttings, it would make six months growth to reach puberty, or thedominancy of the reproductive forces of the plants. Soil, seasons and varie- ties are how^ever factors not counted in this estimate. The effect of the length of season on plant life is governed by the above law. If carnation plants are permitted to remain in the field longnfter they are ripened (this expression is used for the want of a more expressive one) and an open vegetating sea- son continues, they are quite sure to take a second growth; stem and leaves will grow wonderfully, and will be weak and watery; in doing this there is a rapid consumption of the protean compounds laid up in the plant's system for fructification on the biennial plan of nature and they loose their capacity to bloom and seed, and take decisive initia- tive steps into perennialism. The growth that carnation plants make on the benches is entirely different, and like that they would take on the second season of their life, if left in the field. Mature plants of pure biennial type, when benched, seem to have but one purpose; that is the production of flowers, the womb of seeds, embryonic car- nation plants Thos. Mewan announced a law of plant life years ago-. '^JVature always makes an effort to reproduce the plant in proportion to its danger of deaths Often fruits and flowers in order to yield their bloom have to feel the fear of death by scarification, top or root pruning. Be the shock to the constitution of the lifted carnation little or great, it is the turning point of its utility to man. The abstract act of lifting and replanting a car- nation plant is the most salutary thing done to it during its life. It is a substitute for its coma of cold, and spans the winter of its life; it was born only to bloom and seed, to lift it from its earth attachments is an alarm of a wasted life, and it makes immediate efforts to fill the purpose of its being. The act of transplanting from the field to the benches starts all the new impulses of a second season's growth. 196 CARNATION CULTURE. It is to the plant a pulse of danger, life hibernating in its citadel of cells has felt the warning of impending death, an- nihilation has rung a warning bell, and frighted with a season's wealth of petals and of perfume, the carnation plants faces fate; offering possibly two hundred fragrant flowers in a short season for immortality, and smothered in perfume and pavillioned in flowers, dies in its wild, wierd and mysterious efforts to live again in vital seeds. The periods during which carnation plants produce the most bloom are after they are lifted and before their biennial death. A ripened biennial carnation plant is one that has grown its season, elaborated its juices, and crystallized their compounds. It is the puberty of the plant, the period of between growth and reproduction, the hour between yes- terday and tomorrow. Its stems are firm and compact, its nodes are solid and almost woody, its leaves are tough and leathery, the stems and foliage are erect and self support- ing, there is little sap in its circulation, it has stopped growing, and is hardened for the snows and blasts of win- ter. It is then it should be lifted if the soil is dust, the thermometer 90 degrees and without a particle of dirt to the roots, and put on the bench, or in a pot, and with a lit- tle moisture and shade the plant will scarcely flag. It had rounded the vegetating period of its first season's life, and its functions of life were torpid, heretofore it had lived but to grow, hereafter it will live but to reproduce Mr. Orr of Ottawa, III , says, "I lift my carnations in August without any dirt to the roots; last senson I lost but one plant out of 1150." If lifting is done before or after the ripened stage of the. plant, both will be successful, if done with greater care. Upon the ripened conditions of plants turns all the ques- tions of late and early lifting, lifting with nr without balls of earth to the roots, successful and unsuccessful lifting, early and late blooming of the benched plants. If a plant is nut ripened when lifted, it has to continue its growth to the reproductive period of its life, which would cause it to bloom later. Upon the perfected condition of the field plants at the time of lifting turns largely the question of the depth of bench soil and the utility of solid beds for carnations. If the plants are not ripe they need much CARNATION CULTURE. 197 more bench soil from which to draw nourishment to com- plete their biennial maturity, if they are over ripe and started on a perennial growth, they need deep bench earth, possibly solid beds, to sustain their preternatural condition. A properly ripened plant on the bench needs but little earth to sustain a healthy circulation, with it nature re- enacts the marvel of the marriage feast, green leaves smile in flowers, as water '"blushed in wine." These laws are as invariable as the decrees of nature; to disregard them versatility of habits ensues, to regard them reduces carnation culture to almost an exact science. CUTTINGS. Carnation cuttings are now taken during the months of November, December, January, Febuary and March, from benched plants, which have been forced for flowers from one to five months; such cutting must have in their nature the germs of perennialism and versatility. The grower starts the cuttings in high heat and roots them in ten to fifteen days, then grows them in pots or flats in greenhouse temperature until the first of May. Carna- tions, it must be remembered, are by nature low tempera- ture plants,and 75 degress of top and bottom heat poured on the cuttings at the moments of time they are establishing a new and independent plant existence must be highly per- nicious in maintaining for them their true type of hardy plant character. Peter Henderson said, "I am convinced more injury is done carnations by rooting them in a high temperature than from any other one cause." But now that cuttings are taken from highly forced plants, a high temperature for the cutting bench is not only effectual, but necessary to their speedy and successful rooting. Cuttings to perpetuate pure biennial blood can best be obtained from model plants with the best marks of fall ripenings, carried on the dry side, in cold frames, or cold houses, and rooted with little heat in not less than four weeks time. Joshua Ladley of Pa. exhibited cuttings rooted well, at a little over 36 degrees, before the Chester County Car- nation Society. After being rooted they should be carried 198 CARNATION CULTURE. at a low temperature, as there is quite a winter growth in all biennial plants at any temperature above that which produces death. The time of taking the cuttings has everything to do with the early and late maturity of field plants, also the whole question of disbudding in the field. A carnation's life properly measured will not have to be pinched back in the field. If such a thing is needed the cuttings have been taken too early and the flowering resources of the plants prematurely exhausted by such mismanagement. All carnations, as to time of blooming, marshal them- selves between early Snowden and late Henzie. There are four months difference by nature, in tlie time of these two kinds blooming, and there should be just that difference in the length of their lives prior to Oct. i, or the desired blooming period, in order that both may start at once in the race of bloom. This law applies to every carnation in cultivation; as to their time of blooming, every grower can estimate within ten days when any variety will bloom. It is as unfortunate for winter bloom, to strike early kinds too early, as it is for the late kinds to strike too late. For summerflowering, Mr. Lombard states that he strikes his cuttings in August for the following summer's bloom, and they will commence to flower in June. In France the cutltngs as started in July and August, without bottom heat, and carried through the winter in cold frames; the re- sult of this routine is pure biennial blood, great constancy of habit and magnificent floral results. Life lives in cells, in a single cell in a seed with power to multiply new cells. In a cutting life exists in many cells already formed, with a power to further multiply them. Surround a seed or a cutting with natural environments and both will widen, and strengthen their fortifications of life, by healthy cell growth, and strain toward perfection under the ever acting law of structural betterment. In multiplying by cuttings, heredity transmits merit or demerit; the cutting partakes of the exact normal, or ab- normal condition of the parent plant at the moment it is taken, which conditions becomes not only fixed, but often emphasized in the rooted cutting. Versatilities of carnations arises from the character of CARNATION CULTURE. 199 the cuttings, and the place on the flowering stem from which thev are taken. Two cuttings taken from different parts of the same cane of the same plant will produce different results it treated exactly alike. If two projjer cuttings are tnken from the same cane, one early, the other late in the sea- son; or if one is rooted in a high, and the other in a lou temperature, or if carried after being rooted in ^proper, or improper heat; or if subjected to the ricjht and the other to a wrong kind of field soil; in each instance there will be different results. If two propjer cuttings are taken from the same plant, one before it is forced, and the other after the plant is forced; or before, or after the plant has perennalized; in each instance there will be a different result in the character and quality of the crop of bloom. Yet in the light of years of experience, observation, and botanical science, I assert that there is not an agricultural, nor horticultural product, freer from versatility, or one that will give a more uniform and bounteous crop than a carnation plant, if properly treated. SEEDLINGS. ''Thehestin the way of seedling carnations must he close along the line of character nature stamped upon the species.'' The Henzie carnation was born in Detroit in 1877 from the seed of a plant that had remained out, unprotected the previous winter, (the seed of which came from Germany.) No carnation was ever born on the continent with as strong an individualized character as Henzie; it is a good white when inatured, and all sporting of shades of color comes from corrupt stock, deficient heat, or excess of moisture. It is the Napoleon of American carnations. It may have seen its Australitz, met its Waterloo, and be sailing toward its St. Helena, but in a quarter of a century from now there will be growers, w^ho at the name of Henzie will shout ""Vive le Empereur.^' Fred Creighton, one of the best pink carnations of the precise shade, I understand, is from the seed pod of a parent that never felt the subtle sorcery of artificial heat. 200 CARNATION CULTURE. Nature interdicts carnations that have sported their character from seedling, thereby continuing a mongrel race. They are sterile out of nature's abhorrence to mon- grelism. So when they do seed they must be close on the line of their true nature, and the products of their seed are fresh warm specimens from tlie womb of the biennial nature of the species. Tae fabled Antaeus renewed his streasTth whenever he kissed his mother earth. Both flora and fauna refuse to perpetuate their species at home or abroad unless sur- rounded by natural conditions. In new seedling carna- tions we have the assurance that they were warmed to life by the vestal fire that nature burns upon the alter of Dian- thus. Nature protests against in-breeding, both in the animal and vegetable worlds. In plants this is done by maturing- the stamens and pestils, male and female organs of genera- tion, in the same flower at different times. Carnations be- long to that class of plants (pTOteTClTlciTOltsY'^^'^^ch. ripen their pistils before the stamens mature. There is no difference between Hermorphroditic fertilization and propagation by cuttings. In both cases there are a contin- uence of the SCil7h6 plasm and primordiel cell. In cross fertilization there is a union, by fission in the ovules, of the germ cells of two varieties. This sexual union is the nucleus of a new compound entity and life force, dissimilar from either parent, and may be an improvement on them. Propagation by cuttings is not devtalizing, while reproduc- tion by seed is rejuvenating. Old varieties will steadily improve by proper culture, while new varieties will lead them in the race of evolution. If not another seedling was procured in America for the next ten years, the present stock in that time, by the force of selection and the "natural metliod of treatment," would yield ten per cent better flowers than they do today. If the carnation world in lieu of centering all its skill and energy on the production of seedlings, would divide its efforts in maintaining the health and true type of char- acter of the many superb existing kinds, greater progress would be made in carnation culture. Darwin on the "Origon of Species" earnestly insists hat varieties are incipient species, or species are de- CARNATION CULTURE. 20£ veloped varieties. If no decadence attaches, the persistent varieties of carnations of today may develop into future species with all attaching qualities. The Alegatiere variety of forty years ago is the parent of the double clove scented species of carnations of today. POLLENIZATION. Whether the production of seedling carnations, by any process of fertilization, is along defined lines and methodi- cal sequences is not known. If so, these laws are so imperfectly understood, the result in obtaining meritorious seedlings has all the force and effect of accident. Such laws are within the scope of human inquiry, but the curtain behind which nature starts a new life will never be lifted. It is known that the occult forces at play in generation, in determining a yellow color in a carnation, also has hereto- fore worked a late and shy blooming habit, and frequently a weak constitution, and an indisposition to succeed under glass. This disposition exists in yellow carnations in Europe as well as in this country. Seven out of the fourteen yellow carnations that have been grown in this country were imported, and have been attended with all the accom- panying disabilities of such. A strong individualized and successfull winter blooming yellow carnation does not now exist, unless it is found in Golden Triumph. In artificial fecundation all guess work should be ignored in regard to parents. In plants, the stamens are the male, and the pistils the female organs of generation. The pollen dust produced by the first has to be gathered and applied to the sti8:nia of the latter by hand, this done, open the bud to be fertilized cut, away the green anthers, apply the dust, then close and closely tie the bud in fine tissue to prevent all possible contact with strange pollen, and if the seeds mature you have absolute assurance they are a cross of designated parents. What mystery there is about it is independent of this simple method. There are many theories as to the sourse of parentage from which the best seedlings can be obtained. Chaa. Starr says,''use old Edwardsii and De Graw for parents, and fertilize them with the pollen from flowers of a foreign color, and the product will be a better race," Another cor- 202 CARNATION CULTURE. respondent says he obtains the best seedlings by using the the pollen from the single varieties of carnation. J. Lenton, Piru City, Cal., says: "I have grown tiiousands of seedlinors from seed artificiailv and self fertilized. I have this year one acre of seedlings. The percentage of extra fine ones is very small. I choose the most healthy plants for parents and pinch off all buds but those fertilized. I know of no rules governing the production of colors. I have got a color darker than Crimson King from White Henzie. Carnations seed but little, some varieties not at all; their organs of generation are dwarfed and imperfect. The fact they do not seed profusely is largely in their favor as- blooming plants. It is not the tlovver that exhausts a plant but the rich albuminous compounds deposited in the seed that saps its vigor. The abortive attempts of carna- tions to seed is at once followed by fresh efforts to succeed; hence in carnations, as in all other Don-seeding double flowers, the marvelous size and succession of corollas. STOCK PLANTS. Carnation pla:its are lifted from the field, where nature has accorded them loo degrees, their highest extreme an- nual temperature, taken into the house and given an aver- age winter temperature of 65 degress, thus making a mean annual temperature of 75 degrees; within 9 degrees of the mean temperature of the equator,the highest on earth. Cut- tings are taken from the plants and rooted at a high top and bottom heat and thus is the cycle completed of a routine that has contrived for thirty years. Carnations are the marvel of the world's flora. It is not i Strange they are versatile in their habits, but it is strange they flower in quantity at all. The late John Henderson of L. T., stated at the conven- tion of A. F., at Cincinnati, "In the fall of 1883 we had a surplus of two varieties of carnations; we healed them in in cold frames, they wintered well. In March, we took cuttings from them, and last winter they made the best plants for bloom we had, not one of them died, while we lost hundreds of others." Nothing is as sanitary to a 40th latitude biennial plant, or so confirms its character and consecrates it to the religion of its nature; as a baptism 3f frigidity. CARNATION CULTURE. 203 The routine of Carnation Culture is destined to differ- entiate into winter blooming plants, stock and spring blooming plants. The first will be selected from the field, benched and sub- jected to such temperature as the grower's market demands; high, if he wants his crop early; h:)wer, if he desires it con- tinuously through the season. These plants will be used for blooming purposes only, and in no wise for cuttings. They will yield more and better flowers; more because each cutting taken means two flowers lost. Mr. Lombard, at the Philadelphia convention said, "tak- ing cuttings from blossoming plants makes them burst their calyxes; this pressing process throws to much life vifTor in the remaining buds." Stock and spring blooming plants will be benched or potted and carried in cold frames or cold houses at a tem- perature barely above freezing; a little of this will do no harm, they will slowly grow in any temperature above that which causes death. From these plants all cuttings will be taken for the com- ing season's stock. They will be used for spring sales in pots, and early out door summer bloom, and will yield the seed and cuttings from which will grow the ideal carna- tions of the future. The renewal, or exchange of a grower's stock, frequntly, is very beneficial, and is so recognized in Agriculture. Persistency of conditions is interrupted and other en- vironments are substituted which promotes productiveness of bloom. If stock becomes non-productive, or partially so, can it be restored to its biennial type of character? The substitution of rigid natural conditions for artificial ones, will in time certainly restore varieties to their true estate ,and if there is only a moderate deflection of char- acter it will be reached as soon as there is a sanitary equipoise of the life and reproductive forces in the plant. MOISTURE. "The Quantity of moisture a plant requires or its development is in ratio to the area of its leaf surface/' The broad and capacious leaf surface of the Banana,etc , indicates the quantity of water their na^ ture requires. The foliage of plants in this regard is an un- failing index. 204 CARNATION CULTURE. Careful experiments have determined that one square foot of leaf surface exhales i 1-4 ounces of vapor daily, and 1-5 less during the night; while in rainy weather a perfect equilebrium is established between the absorbing and exhaling forces of the plant. The comparatively few and narrow g-rass like leaves of carnations show the leaf surface of this plant to be very small, and the absorbing capacity of the roots to be cor- resDondingly small. They then have the ability to appro- priate but a limited amount of moisture, and a slight excess would be damaging to their health. Physically, and botanically, carnations are dry weather plants; they revolt at an excess of water in diseases on the bench, and perennialism in the field. In the winter of 1889-90 the carnation crop in this coun- try was a partial failure; there were many diseased and defective plants and a decreased floresence in those that were apparently healthy. The previous summer had been unusually wet; excess of moisture during field life was the cause, there was deficient underdraining of carnation plants in retentive soils. Gravellv or sandy subsoils, that season grew the best plants. Mr. Herr, of Pa , says: "rich soil, excess of moisture and heat, favors calyx rupturing and disease in carnations." Some growers are now planting carnations on ridges in the field. The only conceivable advantage of which is; it affords a better surface drainage from the roots of tlie plants during field life, which in a wet season would be a great advantage. Excess of moisture destroys the balance between the life, and reproductive forces of the plants, stops the modifica- tion of leaves into flow^ers by stimulating a plethora of habit. J. Lenton, of Cal., says: "Carnations here bloom the best in the dry season; they all go to leaves and stems in the wet season." SOIL. Growers plant carnations in such soil as surrounds their houses, all succeed to an extent; hence there are many kinds of soils. Plants are fastened to the spot and can make no choice of food only from what is there offered. If CARNATION CULTURE 205 they cannot get what their nature requires they take the next best thing. The stimulus of surplus nutriment abrogates the law of procreation. A plant with redundant vital activity refuses to convert its leaves into flowers, as a fat animal looses its desire to cohabit, and its power to conceive, flowers are the heat of a plant's passion and is analgous with ardor in an animal. Carnations require a compact tenaceous soil; a loose black soil will maintain 8 degrees higher temperature throughout the season^for the roots and plants than will a congenial soil; but it does not contain the elements required by the plant's nature. In such a soil they de- velop stems and leaves and run into perennialism in a single season. Clay soil may be a rich soil, for one species of plants and a quartzose soil full of humus may be a poor soil for the same species, for their proper develop- ment. A. W. Orr, of 111., says, "I have grown my carnations in the same bench earth for five years. I have dressed a few with well rotted cow manure, the effect was; the latter grew much faster in leaves and stems and yielded less flowers." The number of flowers a carnation plant will yield is in iTlV6TS6 ratio to the excess of foliage it may have, and the excess of foliage, is in djvrect ratio to the surplus nutri- ment, warmth, and moisture given it. On the benches or in pots, excess of plant food is qualified by the limited quantity of soil. Carnations with their life forces dis- turbed in the field cannot fully recover themselves on the benches. Benjamin Grey reports he "has raised carnations in solid beds for ten consecutive years with good results without renewing the soil, using cow manure as a ferti- lizer." Mr. L. Wight said at the Philadelphia convention ;"there is one quality the soil must have and that is adhesiveness." VENTILATION. Deficiency of fresh air in carnation houses is a mistake in to which growers instinctively fall. They are practical peo- ple and desire to grow speedily and husband as large a crop of flowers as possible. They read that cold draughts of 2o6 CARNATION CULTURE. air will mildew roses and check the growth of other plants and become morbidly impressed with the tender nature of carnations. A man requires 250 cubic feet of air every hour to fur nish him with a healthy supply of oxygen; a plant requires a proportionate amount to supply it with its needed amount of carbonic gas. The blood in a man is distributed over 1400 feet of cell walls to secure its proper aeration; in a carnation plant the circulating juices are distributed over the cell walls in its foliage fifty times greater than its apparent leaf surface, in order to perfect its contact with the carbonaceous elements of the air. The foliage of all plants require moisture in the ratio that their roots dislike water; dry weather plants are aproximately air plants. The ventilation of carnation houses is a hundred per cent better in the fall and spring months than in mid winter, which is doubtless a great factor in the productiveness of bloom at those periods, as is shown by Winterstatter's tables. ADAPTATION BY SELECTION. One of the versatile habits of carnations is to bloom in crops, and the same variety in other hands, and localities, to bloom continuously. This peculiarity is mostly mon- opolized bv Henzie. If Heiizie has botli of these habits; one must be an acquired habit. It is the cropping habit that is natural to Henzie; because this is common to per- ennials and not to biennials, and Henzie has the strongest natural impress of the former class of plants of any carna- tion in cultivation. The continuously blooming habit is an "adapted" or acquired habit, and whenever it does not so bloom; the law has not been enforced on the stock and it asserts its natural habit, Henzie is a very late blooming kind by nature: this defect is overcome by striking its cuttings very early, thus increasing the sum of heat re- quired for its development by augmenting the number of the davs of its existence. If Henzie could propagate itself by seed, it would scarcely round the period of its biennial existence in two short vegetating seasons; hence it is adapted to the longer seasons on the southern limit of the carnation belt. Notwithstanding the disposition of old kinds to improve under culture, all that are in existence today will eventu- CARNATION CULTXTR'E. 207 :ally l3e relegated to the rear by better and grander evolve- inents of tlie future. Through the processes of generation the qualities of betterment are worked more rapidly than by the processes of selections by cultivation, though the law is enforced in both processes. If size is to be the measure of merit in a carnation ilo\ver,we have seen twenty years of culture swell the corolla Edwardsii from i 1-2 to 2 1-2 inches in diameter, while the process of generation from the same parentage has devel- oped Sea Gull and Pearl whose flowers frequently reach 3 1-2 inches in diameter. Large carnation flowers will always be an object of in- terest, but the best esthetic taste will never demand flowers, whose beauty is so wonderfully augmented by grouping, much larger than those now produced. Under the law of adaptation by selection carnations are under- going many changes. There is less disposition in recent carnations to burst their calyxes than formerly; origina- tors are breeding away from this defect. There is less dis- position in carnations to yield their bloom in crops than there was years ba^k There is an increasing demand for long stemmed carnation flowers, and there is an increasing disposition in carnation plants to yield them. Plants pro- duce more long stemmed flowers as their season under glass progresses; the drawing of the glass and the whole trend of green house influence is in the direction of long stemmed flowers. The tables on the productiveness of bloom show the ratio of increase of long stem flowers as the season closes. It is perfectly natural that new seedlings would adapt themselves to generations of ancestral pressure of this kind, and produce long stemmed flowers. Orient, Pomona, Lamborn, Delight and Argosy, produce almrjst terminal single stem flowers stooling up from the crown of the plant, and are the legitimate progeny of the law of adapta- tion by selection. All new seedlings are now described with more ti nth than formerly ''Constant blooDzers, lon^ stems, and do not hurst J' The demand for carnation in France is during the sum- mer and fall; in America during winter and spring, directly opposite seasons of the year. By adaptation the carnations 2o8 CARNATION CULTURE. of both countries yield their crops for the period of ed- mand, and these habits are now so fixed that imported or exp( rted carnations are for a time worthless. All carna- tions had a common parentage. Mr. Hatfield in "Garden and Forest" imported English Carnations and subjected them to the same treatment as American carnations, but did not find one worth perpetu- ating. It would take years to change habits as it has taken years to form these habits. Wm. Falconer, on a visit to the botanical gardens, D. C, says he noticed a stout branching tree-like plant four feet high of "Ficiis Repensf^ so secured from that thread- like vine in twenty years time by Prof. Smith. Nature never creates a new organ, but adapts old ones to new conditions. "Goldwaithe's Geographical Magazine*' says the banana is an evolved tropical lily, from which nature has eliminated all seed and in lieu thereof has sub- stituted offsets by shoots, as the means of its perpetuation. Years of cultivation by adaptation has largely eliminated mature seed from carnation flowers and in exchange for the exhaustive proteine compounds deposited in them, the plant yields a redundant bloom and its existence is easily continued by cuttings. French growers striketheir cuttings early in the fall; when rooted are planted close in cold frames and thus carried through the winter till the setting out season, after which they bloom early and yield fine crops of magnifi- cent bloom. Acres are thus cultivated to supply the Paris inarket. This process of propagation and cultivation does away with artificial heat; secures the proper mean temper- ature and maintains their true biennial type of character. Carle, the largest carnation grower in the world, embraces hundreds of varieties in his catalogue but not one in twenty is recommended as a winter bloomer; while in America not one in twenty of the listed kinds is recom- mended for summer blooming. Mr Joseph Tailby, of Mass., is of the opinion that **the American Carnation as it is, is the result of adaptation by selection and acclimatization." It is certain either the blooming habit of the French or American Carnation is an acquired one and obtained CARNATION CULTURE. 209 through adaptation by selection, and the natural habit certainly rests with the French carnation The power and influence of the law of adaptation, by selection and heredity may not be fully understood. Ger- man bic)logists would claim the Golden Rule is but the accumulated experience of man, transmitted with con- stantly increasing emphasis throui^h the aeons of past time, an ethic of the ages, which each succeeding century has etched a little deeper on man's nature, until now it has become a permanent moral law; a physical practise trans- muted by adaptation and heredity into a moral attrabute. The disposition of birds to fly from a coming winter to a genial clime is but the transmitted necessities of cycles of time on bird nature, until now it has become a permanent instinct in birds; a climatic condition trans- formed into an intuition. Tliat the modifying influence of man on the little five petaled Dianthus,ever since Pythagoris wrote on the flora of Greece, has been to improve it in size, beauty and fragrance. Tt has exercised a constantly increasing force on its being until now an evolving betterment is a law of its nature. To foster these results the law of the survival of the fittest, to transmit the law, instinct, and habit, survived. Men who did not know the law were hung, birds that had no vestage of the instinct died, carnations that showed no impress of the habit were cast out. The concise language of S. Lenton relative to carnations in California is here given. 'T live in Piru City, Ventura Co., California; my locality is 800 feet above sea level. The extremes of annual heat is 80 and 20 degrees above zero; it rarely freezes, never in the day time; the rainy season is from October to April, the dry season April to October. Carnation plants grow best in the wet season, but flower best in the dry season. I have plants this date, Feb lo, '92, in full bloom in the open ground. A carnation seedling with care will bloom in six months, and all the year there- after, best in April and May; least in July and August, they bloom better in poor than in rich ground, in rich soil ihev grow to be bio;- plants but no flowers. I think a good plant will yield in a season 500 flowers, they bloom much more profusely here than in the east especially seedlings. I have had much experience with carnations in the east as irO CARNATION CULTURE. well as here. I do not know how long a plant would Ifve here, I have several kinds three years old, and are still vigorous and three or four feet in diameter. Eastern car- nations do well here, most varieties seed very freely as Chester Pride, Silver Spray, Crimson King, E. G. Hill^ Henzie, and other kinds, my seed is grown in open ground, the seed I grow is superior to any I can buy, I began to grow seedlings several years ago, I have grown many thousand and have a full acre of them this year; the number of choice kinds obtained are very small compared with the large number grown. I have now 42 extra varie- ties, 18 of which I think are superior to any ever raised in America. Carnation plants are much used here for yard decorations and are constantly increasing in public favor^ but the flowers only bring 40 cents per hundred in the cities, the rose has the lead in popularity here. I start my cuttings under glass using manure for what little heat I need, I think there will be no difficulty about California carnations doing well in the east, eastern carnations do well here, there is probably no place on the continent they seed as freely as they do here which I think is evidence of virility and purity of species. I have named one of my best seedlings Dr. Lamborn, after the author of Carnation Culture, and hope it will do as well east as it does west of the Sierra Nevada mountains."^ CONCLUSION, With me there is no principle better settled in the cosmogony of the world's flora than that varieties are par- ents of species. A life lease of ages is given by nature to every vdTi&tlf of carnation, in its natural state, subject only to the law of the survival of the fittest. The life and health of carna- tions, if naturally conditioned, though artificially manipu- lated, would be as persistent as they would be in a state of nature^ Propagation by cuttings works no decadence in the life force of a variety. The life of blooming usefulness of a carnation plant is often but a few years. If these facts are admitted, it is conclusive that it is un- natural treatment that modifies the character of carnation CARNATION CULTURE. 2rl plants and check them so quickly off of the roster of useful- ness? The .only remedy are methods of conditions, in harmony with the character nature has impressed upon their species. g' A ^ REGISTERED LIST OF CARNATIONS ORIGI- NATED SINCE THE SPRING OF 1889. o FOR ALL, VARIETIES ORIGINATED AND CULTIVATED IN AMEKICA PRIOR TO 1889 SEE PAGES 133 AND 164, RESPECTIVELY OF THIS WORK. PINK CLASS OF CARNATIONS. Adelade — Lenton. Angelus — Shelmire. Annie Wiegand — Dorner. Argosay — Starr. Aurora — Swayoe. Avalanch— Lenton. Brewster — Starr. Betrace— Shelmire. Beauty of Oxford — Schneider. Cherry Lips — Dorner. Christine — Hill. Chastity — Starr. Doranda— Lombard. Dorothy — Shelmire. Daybreak— Simmons. E. Lonsdale — Dorner. Edna Craig— Hill. EA^ylin — Smith. Grace Battles— Lonsdale. Grypsy Queen — Hill. Hellen Gal vin— Wight. H. E. Chitty- -Dorner. Jennie Parker— Lenton. Mable— Lenton. Mrs. Coldflesh— Coldflesh. Mrs. L. Fawcett— Fawcett. Mrs. L. Fancourt — Fancourt. Mrs. A. Hunt— Hill. Mrs. Hitt-Hill. Mrs. E. Reynolds—Dorner. Mm Diaz Albertine— Dorner. Majesty— Lenton. Mary— Lenton. ISTellie Lewis— Lewis. Old Rose— McGowen. Oona — Lenton . Princess — Wight. Pendleton — Swanye. Rosemary — Starr. Richmond — Dorner. Salmon Queen — Hill. Sea Shell— Esler. Spartan — Dorner. Thos. Cartledge — Swayne. Tendress — Miller. Wm. Scott— Dorner. West End— Jennings. W. N. Rudd-Hill. Welcome — Dorner. YELLOW VARIEGATED CLASS OF CARNATIONS. Blizzard — Starr. Csesar — Shelmire. E. V. Lowe — McGowen. Goldsmith — Lenton . Nellie Bly — Shelmire Hesper — Wight. Louise Porsch— McGowen. Mrs. H.M.Stanley—Shelmire. Pride of Essex — McGowen. Sunflower — Lenton. 212 CARNATION CULTURE. WHITE CLASS OF CARNATIONS. Blanch— Dorner. Catharine Paul— Imported. Delight— Dorner. Daisy— Jennings. Excelsior— Brinton. EcUeweis— Shelmire. 1^ Jorence Van Reyper— Esex Floral Co. Geo. Hancock— Dorner. Lady Fair— Starr. Lizzie McGowen— McGowen. Ohio— Paddoc. Pearl — Pennock. Piru — Lenton. Snow Bird — Jennings. Silver Lake — Taylor. Sea Gull-Hill. White Wilder — Pesenecker. Wanderer, Larkins, White Wings — .Jennings. White Dove— Hill. Waneta— Chambers. White Cap— Lenton. White Beauty— Favi^cett. SCARLET CLASS OF CARNATIONS. Attraction — Hill. Constancy— Starr. Fred Dorner— Dorner. Florence — Fisher. Hoosier— Dorner. Hector — Lombard . Lasandria —Starr. Lavina — Lenton. Mary— Lenton. New Jersey —McGowen. Paradise— Lenton. Romance— Lenton. Red Cross -Hill. Rob Roy— Creighton. Scarlet Ray — Ward. Weatherwood — Creighton. CRIMSON CLASS OF CARNATIONS. Alexander— Lenton. Pomona— Starr. Buster— Lenton. Purple Beauty-McGowen, Creole— Dorner. Sambo— Essele. lago— McGowen. Sane Meto— FTill. Lee Roy— Lenton. Village Maid— Creighton. Pupura— Starr. Wide-A wake— Lenton. CLASS OF WHITE VARIEGATED CARNATIONS. American Flag — Bergman. Banner — Fawcett. Catharine Storris— McGowen. Delaware — Brinton. Evangeline — Lenton. Fair Rosamond— Hancock. Gen. Custer — Shelmire. Geneva — Dorner. Ideal — Lenton. Indiana -Dorner. Lady Martha— Brentcn. Lora, Lenton. Lessetta — Le n ton . May Flower — Jennings Oddity— B re n ton. Orange Blossoms— Jennings. Patti— Shelmire. Paxton— Fisher. Ramond— Lenton. Zebra— Ward . YEIiLO'W CLASS OF CARNATIONS. Amy Phipps— Simmons. Golden Triumph— Lombard. This work furnishes a registered list of all the carnations of any merit ever grown or cultivated in America, all other lists CARNATION CULTURE. 213 are copied from this work. Quite a number in the list are credited, properly, with the name of the party who purchased the original stock. All the original stock of carnations were imported, some of the kinds reaching back thirty years. A few in the above list will not be in the market. for two or three years and are of unusual promise. The classification by color and with the name of the originator, is considered a surer index of merit than any stereotj^ped description. PRODUCTIVENESS OF BLOOM. R. W. Winterstater's (Ohio) Scientific record of the bloom cut from four varieties of Carnations from Oct. 17, '90 to June, 27, '91. WILLIAM SWAYNE. Cut in Short Stems Long Stems Total October, after nth. 196 161 357 November, 1585 983 2568 December, 693 1394 2087 January, - 400 790 1190 February, 400 485 885 March, - 485 745 1230 April, 705 925 1630 May - 575 1550 2125 June to 27th. 2325 1050 2375 7164 8063 15447 Number of plants, 530; Square feet of bench, 308; Plants per square foot, 1.7; Blooms per plant, 30.8; Blooms per square foot, 51.77. 2300 cuttings were taken from these plants. SILVER SPRAY. Cut in Short Stems Long Stems Total October, after 17 th. 140 320 460 November, 90 734 824 December, 247 760 1007 January, 705 705 February, - 1230 1230 March, 1030 1030 April, - 375 375 May 1550 1550 June to 27th. 575 700 1275 1052 7404 8456 Number of plants, 332; Square feet of bench, 227; 5; number plants per square foot, 1.4; Blooms per plant, 25.46; Blooms per square foot, 37,16. 2200 cuttings were taken from these plants. 2 14 CARNATION CULTURE. BUTTERCUP. Cut in Short Stems Long Stem IS Total October, after 17th. 130 130 November, 275 535 ■ 710 December, 380 411 791 January, 325 497 822 February, 445 535 980 March, 386 1175 2561 April, 520 1275 1795 May, 800 3825 4625 June to 8th. - 375 375 3151 8758 11909 Number of plants, 550; Square feet of bench, 320; Plants per square foot, 1.7; Blooms per plant, 21.47; Blooms per square foot, 36.9. 4300 cuttings were taken from these plants. TIDAL WAVE. Cut in Short Stems Long Stems Total October, after 17th. 57 234 291 November, ^ 115 567 682 December, - - 227 419 647 January, - 215 421 686 February. - 515 960 1475 March, - 610 1475 2085 April, - - 660 3725 4385 May, - 90 2000 2090 June to 27th. - 575 475 2490 10376 12897 Number of plants, 600; Square feet of bench, 294; Plants per square foot, 2.07; Blooms perplant, 21.44; Blooms per square foot, 43.76. 3150 cuttings were taken from these plants. The above plants were grown in a night temperature of from 45 to 55 degrees; an average day temperature some 20 de- grees higher. Counting cutting, Mr. Ws plants would each average 36i florets for the time of record and 4i per month. E. T. Lombard, Mass. — "I cut from just 700 plants of Hector in a solid bed, from Oct. 13, 1890 to June 1 , 1891, 53700 market- able flowers, nearly 76 5-7 flowers per plant and from the same plants I took 2000 cuttings;" equaling 5.7 flowers per plant, total flowers per plant, 83 2-10." W. R. Shelmire, Pa.— "Taking my stock together, each plant averages 18 flowers and as many cuttings during the sea- son;" equivalent to 54 5=!owers per plant. CARNATION CULTURE. 215 S. Lenton, California. — "I think a good plant here will yield in a season 500 bloom. 1 counted today (Jan. 4, '92) 172 blooms and buds on Majesty. Avalanche had 107, and all the others of my ]8 seedlings ranged between these two extremes." H, E. Ch[TTY, N. J.— "I cut 10,000 blooms and 3500 cuttings from 3500 Lamborn carnation plants up to Jan. 1, 1891, mostly on long stems. They were under an area of 801 square feet of glass."' One cutting would hardly destroy two flowers of this variety, while with kinds that yield axillary buds,as Snowden, it would cause the loss of more than two flowers. DeWitt Bros., Pa., make the following report through the "Florist:" 1330 Henzie plants from Nov. 1, 91, to Feb. 1, 92, produced 16218 flowers; making 121 flowers per plant for, three months, or a little over 4 florets per month for each plant. Two collections of Grace Wilder plants in different houses, ag- gregating 2390 plants, from Sept. 1, '91, to Feb. 1, "92, yielded 23453 flowers. Averaging nearly 10 florets per plant for the ninty days,or 3 1-10 florets per month for each plant. The 3720 plants oc- cupied 2319 square feet of bench room. They further said all the plants were in full blooming vigor on Feb. 1, 1892; they took no cuttings off the plants until after the first of the year, and then from but 3 to 5 cuttings from the most vigorous plants, and also that it is damaging to the quantity of holiday bloom of plants to take cuttings earlier, J. G. BuiiHOws, N. Y.— "T have a house 84x10 set with 970 Lami>orn caniaxion plants: from Sept. 15 to Jan. 15, '9:^, I picked 13257 flowers, two thirds on long steins." No report of the cut- tings taken. Averages 30 florets per plant, 40 florets per super- ficial foot room, and H plant per foot." No variety is as small, or as terminal in its buds and bloom as this, and would bear to be set much closer. J. C. HoAG. Ohio,— "From 1100 plants up to Jan. 1, 1892, I cut 8575 long and short stem bloom.'' Geuiige Smil'II, Vermont.— "I cut 15000 flowers from 800 Grace Wilder plants in one season." No report of cuttings taken, averaging near 20 florets per plant. E. SwAYNE, Pa.— "I cut 190 flowers from a single plant of "Aurora" during the season of 1890-91." Wm. NiciiOLSo.'-J, Mass. -'-From Sept. 1, '90 to Sept. 1, "91, one house of 1700 plants yielded me 121250 marketable flowers, be- side about 10000 cuttings. The varieties were Anna Webb, Mrs. Mangold, Mrs. Fisher, Century, Tidal Wave, Wilder, Portia, etc." This is for a very long season, and on the basis of estimates averages 83 flowers per plant. "This same house filled with 1800 Hectors and the other improved plants up to Jan. 1, 1892, has yielded me .30000 bloom.". B. W. Ork, Illinois,—"! have just counted, Feb. 10, "92, 75 buds and bloom on an average plant of Tendress; last winter one plant had 125 buds and bloom on at one time." 2l6 CARNATION CULTURE. Joseph Renakd, Pa.— "I have kept this record: 400 superficial feet of bencli filled with Portia from Oct. 1, to Jan 1, 1892 yielded 17250 flowers:— from 160 feet of bench room planted with J. J. Har- rison, I cut 8025 bloom. I also took from the three benches in that time 35000 cuttings." This would average, without cuttings (iO Portia flowers, 50 Silver Spray flowers and 50 J. J. Harrison florets per foot of bench surface. This estimate is for half the season and the cuttings not estimated; surface yield must not be confounded with plant yield. A sworn statement of C. Akhurst, foreman for H. E. Chittv, N. J. says: in Nov. and Dec. 1891, and in January 27 davs of Feb. 1892. 1 cut off of 3840 Lizzie McGowen plants, 60550 flowers and during the same time took off the same plants 50000 cuttings. The plants occupied 1100 feet of bench surface. Not estimating the loss from the cuttings it would average about 16 flowers per plant for nearly half the season, or at the rate of 4 flowers per plant per month, and 55i florets per square foot of bench room or 111 flowers per foot of bench room for the season. (This latter seems a Itttle high and 1 may have mistaken the figures.) Adding the cuttings to the florets it would make 26 florets per plant for the time, or 52 for the season, or 74 flowers per month and 34 plants per square foot of bench room. Thousands of men are engageti and much caijitai invested ingrowing carnations, notwithstanding there never has been a standard of what constitutes a crop of bloom. A farmer knows how many bushels of wheat or corn constitutes a full crop. Carnation growers have never known how many florets per plant or superficial foot of bench room they should receive for a full crop. Growers have been harvesting their crop of flowers with seeming satisfaction: at the same time not knowing that they were only receiving half the capabilities of the plants. Plants range in sterility of bloom from the loss of a singfe flower to absolute barrenness. Mr. Winterstatter's tabulation of bloom is very complete. The other reports are defective. The cuttings taken from a plant is a factor to be considered under the present system of treatment. Mr. Wight stated at the Philadelphia convention of the Ameri- can Carnation Society that in ''some varieties every cutting taken cost him ten cents in bloom sacrificed;" some of the re- ports are for a part of the season only, and no cuttings men- tioned. The best deductions I can make from the foregoing, and other records not quoted is: 49 florets per plant for the sea- son, 5 per month, 75 per foot bench room, and many varieties counted in the estimate. "AMERICAN FLAG."" The most distinctly marked Stripe Carnation in cultivation. A sport of Portia, and originated with Bergman, of N. J. ADVERTISEMENTS. The following Business Cards represent the Most Reliable and Successful Growers, Originators and Dissemi- nators of Carnations in America. FISHKILL, DUCHESCO., N. Y. WHOLESALE FLORIST, ^^rXliefsSrer'"^^ Grand Haven, Mich., CARNATIONS A SPECIALTY. Cuttings, Young Plants, and Field Grown Plants in Season. Correspondence Solicited. PifiNiTlilM^ '^^^ VIOLETS a Specialty. Rooted Cutting* of both al- l/fiulml lUnO ways on Hand in their Proper Season. Field Grown Plants in the Fall at moderate prices. Over 20,000 feet of Glass for the cultivation of these plants. Send for Circular. JOS. RENARD, Unionville, Chester Co., Pa. Seedlings, Standards, Novelties of Merit, Plants and Rooted Cut- tings at Wholesale. C. J. PENNOCK, The Pines, Kennett Square, Pa. 0. EISELE, FLORIST. N. W. Cor. Eleventh and Jefferson Sts., Phila. CARNATIONS a Specialty. New and Standard Varieties. ■^^^x-it© fox* I*x-io« Xris-t. CARNATION, ORANGE BLOSSOM And other New and Old Varieties. Rooted Cuttings in the Win- ter. Field Grown Plants in the Fall. Send for Circular. E. B. JENNINGS, Sotithport, Conn. Box 76. Carnation, Violet and Pansy Grower. Wm. Swayne, Carnation Specialist, KENNETT SQUARE, PA. Wholesale Price List on Application of New and Stand- ard Sorts. HEW SEEDLIHG CARHATIOHS ! Of '89, '90 and '91. Lavinia— Large Scarlet, very double flowers on long sterna, thrifty grower, very fragrant. Ramoa—Uark red, striped with white strong grower, flowers on long stems, verv fragrant. Sunflower— Yellow, striped with red, dwarf, strong plants, free bloomer. Buster— Dark red, flowers very large, freely produced, healthy plants. Pi ru— White; strong grower, flowers on long stout stems, inclined to be dwarf. very fragrant. Adelaide- Satiny pink; very large double bloom. Goldsmith— Color, a rich yellow, the edges striped with red, flowers of large size, long stout stems, vigorous growers and free. Marvel— Color, a dark pink, shided with cream, flowers on long stems, healthy grower, very fragrant. Jennie Parker— Dark pink, changing with age to » pale pink; free bloom- er, healthy grower, very fragrant. Ideal— White edges, striped with red; free bloomer, vigorous grower. Majesty— A. rich dark pink, very doui)Ie, thrifty grower, very fragrant. Wide-awake— Dark red, strong flower, free bloomer. Evangeline— White, striped with red, free bloomer, healthy grower. Parad ise— Bright red, flowers on long stout stems, free bloomer, strong grow er, very fragrant. Oona— Dark rich pink, large, free bloomer, strong healthy grower, fragrant. White Cap— Pure white, large blooms, very double, strong healthy grower, free bloomer, very fragrant. Avalanche— Dark pink, free bloomer, thrifty grower, very fragrant. Romance— Large, bright red, thrifty grower, free bloomer, very fragrant. Each plant 25 cents, whole collection, $3 00. beroy- Rich deep red, vigorous grower, lary— Deep scarlet, free bloomer. Alexandria- Dark red, large, strong grower. Lessetta— White, striped with red, very fragrant. Lora— White, striped with red, stout, long stems. Mabel— Rich pink, free and fragrant. These Carnations have been carefully selected from thousands of seedings. If you want larger Carnations which are not in this list, 1 have them three or four inches in diameter. 8end for them. S. LENTON, Carnation Grower, Piru City. Ventura County, California. *^»;^ THE PATCH IN THE BELT.*^5<^- J. H. LADLKY & SONS, J. H. Ladley. George T.adley. Edward Ladley. CARNATIONS A SPECIALTY. fl^mm®t S(|yiaF©e) ^9i, GRACE WILDER, BENJ. GREY, - MALDEN MASS, C. E. BRINTON, FLORIST, Originator of Carnation Seedlings, Excelsior, Delaware, Dia- mond, Lady Martha and Odity. Excelsior will be grown in quantity for the Trade in 1893. HOLESALE I"LOEIST, BliOOMSBVRG, PA. JOHN xT. GONNRLY, BRYN M^WR, PA., Wholesale Grower of Carnation Flowers, And Rooted Cuttings of all the Standard Kinds, and Novelties of Merit?. Send for Price List CARNATI0NS3 ORCHIDS, \ FLORIST, DiixJbS:^^ ^ GERMANTOWN, PHILA., PA. Richmond, Indiana, FINEICARNATIONS, All Worthy Novelties in all Lines of our Trade. Wholesale G»ower of CARNATIONS, COLEUS and GERANIUMS- BOOTED CCTTINGS OF BEST TABIETIE8. LOCKLAND LUMBER CO., LOCKLAND, OHIO. Wood Work for Commercial Greenhouses. Our method of construction is original with us — is satisfactory in Every Respect and any ordinary me- chanic can put up the Work. 4 and 5 inches Square. Nothing as good for walls. Write for circulars and prices. Clear Cypress used exclusive. A. M. STEARNS^ Manager. GEORGE CREIGHTON/ GROWER OF Gj^RNjlTIONSi VIOLETS. NEW HAMBURG, N. Y. Address after Miy i, 1892, POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. J. G. VAUGHAN, US & 148 WASHINGTON ST., CHICAGO. llHHlil^ IN SKASON: Greenhouses: Western Springs, Illinois. New White Carnation PURITAN. This Grand Variety with a Trial of Two Years promises to be one of Merit. The Flowers are Large, borne on Long Stiff Stems of Great Substance, al- ways of the purest White and an Send for Circular with Prices. Catalogues of Nursery and Florist Stock on Application. WOOD BROTHERS, Fishkill, N. Y. ALBERT M. HERR, L B. 338. LANCASTER, P. A. All novelties are carefully tested and only those of positive merit listed. Quality is the first consideration in Cuttings, Plants, and Varieties. Send for lAsts, Satisfaction Assured. Car- nationSj Smilaoc^ JPansies, CHOICE C^I^NJITIONS. §■ 1 7=^r - ^. I ft NEW AND STANDARD VARIETIES. And a number of Seedlings and Sports of merit, Pips, Rooted Cuttings and Plants in Pots in the winter and Spring. field grown plants in the Fall. Send for circular. IV. R. Sheltnire^ Avondale, Chester Co., Pa. laTE ARE SITUATED IN THE CARRTATIOW BELT. QELORQR SMIT^H, SEEDLINGS AND STANDARD VARIETIES, Ivlanchiester, Vermont. Oi O a B (— ift'iTC PC 1 o 99 ^ CD • 3 CO -\ P •x« a. o cr ««i ce 8S P R- J. MENDENHALL, The Pioneer Florist of the Northwest, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. ALL KINDS OF CUT FLOWERS IN SEASON, lo^ ^^ ^<^*^^^ ^^d Wholesale, and of plants the flneat. Roses, Carnations. Sml- ux, ijnchsias, Begon as. Marguerites, Ageratums, Geraniums, Petunias. Double White Primroses. Palms. Ferns, White Daisies, Chrysanthemums, and all other Plants usually Qrowu by a fiwt-class florist. Send for Catalogue. -m CAIM P -^ Rooted Cuttings. Rooted Cuttings. A Full List of the MoBt Profitable Kinds to grow. Exhibition Prize Varieties and Valuable Noyelties. ALL AT MODERATE PRICES. Address, - H. E. CHITTY, Paterson, Ngav Jersey. Hie Florisrs Ma^^ PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY, BY A.T.DeLaMarePr't'giPiib.Co.Ltd. I70 FULTON STREET. N. Y. Advertising Rates, $1.00 per inch, each Insertion. DiBcounts on Long Term Contracts. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, $1.00 PER YEAR. It is a Live Weekly, will keep you Posted on all Topics of Interest, and circulates among the Traile Only. The Cottage Garden- East Moriches, New York. O. W. "WARD, Manager. CARNATIONS, VIOLETS, AND PANSIES, Rooted Cuttings, Plants from Pots and Field Grown. Plants in Season. Cut Blooms in Quantity. Best ot Stock. Newest Varieties. and Seedlings. sESKri> i^on. i»:r.xoe3 x^ijst. Disseminator of The New Variety, '9 With other Promising Varieties to be Marketed Later Also the Best Standard Varieties. Salem, Ohio. M. T. JLOMSARn, IVaylaitd, Mass, Introducer of I^a"o-\7V 0-A-3E=Ll>a"-A.TI03NrS, and Grower of Standard Varieties. Sending out Rooted Cuttings, Small Pot Plants in Winter and Spring, and field grown plants in Autumn. Send for Catalogue.