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American
Carnation
Culture.

LAMBORN.

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- American i

Carnation Culture

THE EVOLUTION OF

DIANTHUS CARYOPHYLLUS SEMPERFLORENS,

ORIGIN, HISTORY, CLASSIFICATION, VARIETIES,

PROPAGATION, DISEASES, REMEDIES, CARE,

CULTURE AND COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE.

BY L. L. LAMBORN.

'Flowers are the smiles of nature."

FOURTH ;EDITION.. ;;

REWRITTEN AND BKOU&HT 'COMPLETELY UP TO DATE.

ALLIANCE, OHIO,

LO RA L. LAMBORN, PUBLISHER.
1901.

Agric. Dept

Copyrighted in 1901 by

LO RA L. LAMBQRN, Publisher,

ALLIANCE, OHIO.

Press of

The Review Publishing Co.
Alliance* Ohio.

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CONTENTS.

PROLOGUE, - 9

I — Origin of the term Dianthus. Name of a genus qf plants
History from Theophrastus to Alegatiere. Arrest of botan-
ical knowlege for centuries. 13

II.— History of Carnations from Alegatiere, 1844, to Charles Starr,
1893. Peculiarities of the new species. First importations.
First cross fertilization in America. - 18

III. — Carnations from Charles Starr to the 2nd year of the 2oth centurv.
Importations into the Carnation zone. Number originated
and introduced. Analysis of the list. - 23

IV. — New Carnations. Hybridizing and crossing. How to fertilize.
Chances for success. Opinions of experts. Restraining and
progressive forces. - 29

V. — Life lives in cells. Continuing life by cuttings. The conditions
required. Difference between a cutting and a seedling.
Kind of cuttings. The time to strike them. - 39

VI. — Carnations in the field. Precautions against failure. Prepara-
tions for their field life. The sanitarium for Carnations.
Number of plants to an acre. - 45

VII.— Carnations from the field to greenhouse beds or benches. Early
and late lifting. In wet and dry weather. Bench planting.
Distance apart. Watering and shading. - 48

VIII.— Solid beds. Raised benches with wooden, slate, and tile bot-
toms. Testimony of Carnation growers as to their prefer-
ences. Proper soil for beds and benches. 52

IX.— Tying up, or supporting Carnation flowering stems. The better
plan. Disbudding Carnations. A matter of market. A
conservation of vital energy. - 56

X. — Professor Arthur on plant respiration. Surface view of
epidermal cells of a Carnation leaf. Section cut through
a Carnation stoma. Physiological demand of Carnations
for fresh air. 58

XI. — Overhead watering. Surface watering. Sub-watering. Cost
of beds and benches. Opinions of growers on their rela-
tive merits. - 61

XII. — Topping Carnations. Shipping flowers and cuttings. Enigma
of flowers "going to sleep." Opinions of eminent Carna-
tionists. Functions of petals and their preservation. - 65

XIII.— Is quantity of bloom being sacrificed for quality ? Are Carna-
tions growing less productive? Records quoted. Blooms
per plant. Comparisons made. - - 70

XIV. — CHssification of Carnations based on colors. European system
of nomenclature. Ratio of colors in Carnations. Virile
colors. Sentiment of colors. - 73

XV. — Growing Carnations under glass through the summer. Why a
higher grade of flowers? Increased cost. Advanced price,
an earlier market, the compensation. - 80

XVI. — Sunlight and ventilation the prime factors in a Carnation house.
Butting glass. Heating. Heat radiating surface necessary
to glass surface. Tables. 82

XVII. — Fertilizers for Carnations. Formulas. Effect of excessive nutri-
ment on Carnations. Exact analysis of a given quantity of
Carnation roots, stems and leaves. - 89

XVIII. —Diseases of Carnations resulting from insects: Greenfly, (Rhopa-
losiphum Dianthi}\ Red Spider (Tetranychus Telarius}\
Nematodes (Heterodera Radicicola] . Thrips. Their
remedies. 94

XIX. — Diseases of Carnations resulting from Fungi: Rust ( Uromyces
Caryophyllinus}', Wet Stem Rot (Rhuzoctonia}\ Dry
Stem ^Lot(Fusarium); Spot Disease (Septoria Dianthi]
Their remedies. - 100

XX. — Nutrient diseases. Barren Carnations. Cohering petals.
Purple Joint (Rosette']. Ruptured Calyxes. Double flower-
ing Carnations. Incidental pests. - - 107

XXI. — Do varieties of Carnations deteriorate and die? Continuing
life by cuttings a natural and virile method. As preserva-
ative as reproduction by seed. no

XXII. — Life lives in cells. Conception is by fission of cells. Origin
of bud variations or "Sports." Bi-sexual life in Carna-
tions. In all Monoecious class of plants. - 1 13

XXIII. — Geographical Botany of the commercial Dianthus. Its type in

Germany, France, England, California, on the isotherm

of 50° mean temperature. - 1 18

XXIV. —Carnations the product of adaptation by selection. Survival

of the fittest. Origin of varieties. Basis of species.
Foundation of genera. Essence of orders. - . - 122

XXV. — Map of the zone of the semperflorens Carnation. Isothermal

lines. Climatic conditions. Every type of species confined

to its own isotherm. Carnations 50° mean heat. - 126

XXVI. — Map of 50° isotherm normal climate for Carnations. List of
the best Carnations since the birth of Astoria. Names,
colors, originators, place of their birth. 131

XXVII — New species of Carnation. Distinctive features of Dianthus
Superba, and Dianthus Semperflorens. They require
different cultural treatment. - 137

XXVIII— Carnation brevities. Multum in parvo. 144

XXIX — Popular Carnation Culture. Carnations in every cottage.
How amateurs can grow them for lawn adornment. Table
decorations and boutonnieres. - 165

XXX — Bpilogue. Evolution of the five-petaled pink. - 171

PROLOGUE.

HE first edition of AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE
was published in 1885, before the organization of
any national floral societies, or the establishment of
Trade Journals, to collect and collate facts. The
only medium or source of mutuality among carna-
tion growers at that time was by brief, sententious
catalogues. The author purchased and grew nearly
200 varieties of carnations then originated, to obtain
some experimental data upon which to found the
work. He then claimed and now claims AMERICAN
CARNATION CULTURE was the first and only work ever published
in historical form on the American remontant type of carnations.
Dodwell published a work in England about the same time
with only a few pages devoted to the Alegatiere type of carnations.
Hogg wrote a work in 1820 on the culture of the carnation pink.
Asa Gray wrote a pamphlet on carnations in the thirties, Gard
in 1597, Busier in 1813, John Ray in 1713, Philip Mullens in
1752, William Curtis in 1788, Martin in 1807, and others, up to
1840, speak and briefly treat of carnations. But none of these
refer to the species I seek to deal with, for it was not originated
until 1856.

The superintendent of the Agricultural Department of the
United States, estimates from the census of 1 900 that the glass sur-
face of greenhouses in America amounts to 300,000,000 superficial
square feet, equaling an area of about 8000 acres. There are 15,000
floral establishments that rise to the commercial importance of
requiring constantly the employment of two men. and giving sup-
port to 30,000 people. This calculation does not include thous-
ands of small houses, and conservatories for growing plants and

10 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

flowers for private use and incidentally local sales. The superin-
tendent estimates that the total sales, or output from the glass con-
sidered, amounts to 22,500,000 dollars yearly. The item of roses,
in this aggregate, amounts to 6,000,000 dollars; carnation flowers,
4,000,000 dollars annually; and the number of carnation flowers
sold equals the number of roses. A correspondent writes that
3,000,000 carnations are planted in the field this spring (1901)
tributary to the Chicago market.

There are two establishments, each with a quarter of a
million feet of glass, devoted largely to carnations. They each
plant nearly twelve acres in the field, and house two hundred and
fifty thousand plants in the fall. Millions of dollars are now in-
vested in growing carnations.

The first carnation plant sold in America was in March, 1864.
What an amazing development in a humble industry in less than
forty years. The end is not yet. The carnation crosses the thresh-
old of the 20th century with queenlier step, greater grace, and
sublimer beauty than ever before.

Dianthus is the coming flower. Its acclaims for the Throne of
Flora is echoing in the tomorrows Dianthus is embodied evolu-
tion. It contains imprisoned with its mystic life-force the power of
marvelous evolvement, the prophecy of untold progress. It
started on its triumphant march a petty plant, with five little
flower leaves, glued to the grimy earth from which it sprang; now
fifty dawn-lit, iridescent petals nestle around its anthers and snare
the admiration of the world with the witcheries of their colors.
It has kept abreast with the progress of the ages, and is responsive
to the magic touch of the florist's art. The carnation will live and
grow in public esteem as long as men love the perfume of spices,
pay homage at the gates of grace, and bow at the shrine of beauty.

In this work the amateur will find a guide for his efforts; the
inexperienced carnation grower, directions for success; the practic-
al cultivator, sufficient to interest him; the future historian of
Dianthus, facts rescued from oblivion; and the vegetable phys-
iologist, a philosophy close along the lines of plant life.

CRESSBROOK.

This Carnation received the phenomenal rating at Baltimore, in Feb-
ruary, 1901, by such critical and competent men, acting as judges, as Wm.
Scott, Wm. Nicholson and Patrick O'Mara, of 94 points, within 6 points of
perfection. This judgment was confirmed by* men of equal acumen in
Boston a month later. Cressbrook originated with Mr. C. Warburton at
Fall River, Mass. It will be put on the market in the spring of 1902.

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM DIANTHUS— THE NAME OF A

GENUS OF PLANTS— HISTORY FROM THEOPHRASTUS

TO ALEGATIERE.

THREE hundred years before the Christian Era, Theo-
phrastus, a disciple of Socrates, philosopher and moralist,
lived in Greece. He published a little work on the
Flora of his native land; he had no conception of genera and
species, and divided all plants into three classes; Aquatic, Flower-
ing Plants, and Culinary Herbs. He wrote in Greek, and was
the first author to mention and name a little procumbent, five
petaled flowering plant; he called it Dianthus, from two Greek
words, Dio (divine), anthos (flower), meaning Divine flower.

In the evolution of botanical science Theophrastus was fol-
lowed by Discorides, Pliny, and Galen, in the second century.
From this period until the sixteenth century botany was not en-
riched by a single work of merit. During this long interval ot
time, the little light that had been thrown on the vegetable
kingdom by a few early authors became more dim and obscure.

In the sixteenth century, Gesner of Germany was the first to
establish families ot plants founded on resemblances, or affinities,
and his labors awakened new interest in botanical pursuits,
lyinnseus lived in the eighteenth century and gave a new no-
menclature to botanical science. He described with precision
every organ of a plant now known, and gave them appropriate
names which are still closely adhered to. His classification of the
vegetable world is called the "Artificial System." Linnaeus is
called the "Prince of Naturalists." With a few admitted defects,
no arrangement of the plants has yet been offered as simple and
effective as his.

After lyinnaeus, Jussien proposed a system of classification
founded upon certain distinctions which was found to be universal,

14 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

and his arrangement has been called the * 'Natural System" of
botany.

It is of interest to inquire into the botanical classification of
a plant that has lived with a changeless name for two thousand
three hundred years in the floral records of the world, and whose
flowers in forty years, in this country, have risen in commercial
importance to four millions of dollars annually.

According to the I^innaean System (improved by Lindley,)
of plant classification, the carnation of commerce belongs to the
Caryophyllacie tribe of plants, of the Dianthus genera, and is one
of the twenty natural orders of the Polypetalous division of plants.
As such it is technically described as an Herb, with opposite, en-
tire leaves; Flower, regular, both terminal and axillary; Sepals, 4
or 5, distinct, or adhering; Petals, 4 or 5; Stamens, as many as
the petals opposite them, sometimes twice as many; Ovary, com-
posed of 2 to 5 carpels; Stigma, 2 to 5, sessile, filiform; Fruit,
a capsule opening at the apex; Seeds, indefinite in number;
Embryo, curved or coiled around the outside of a mealy alburnum.

There are enumerated over 200 species of the Dianthus
genera of plants, none of which are natives of America, if Dian-
thus Repens is excepted, which is found on the coast of Kotzebues
Sound. Dianthus Armenia, and Prolifica found in the eastern
states, are introduced, and troublesome weeds, as is Dianthus
Stellaria Media, or the common Chickweed that is so vigorous in
the cooler months of autumn. There are only four species in
America which are regarded of any floral value. They are:

i. — Dianthus Barbatus. Synonyms: Sweet William, etc.

2. — Dianthus Chinesus. Synonyms: China Pink, D Diadem-
atus, D. Lancinatus, D. Headwigii are sports of this variety, and
in a bed of a thousand seedlings it is hard to find two alike.

3. — Dianthus Plumaris. Synonyms: Garden Pink, Bunch
Pink, Florists' Pink, Cushion Pink, Pheasant- eye Pink, Dianthus,
Hortensus, etc.

4. — Dianthus Caryophyllus. Synonyms: Clove Pink, Clove
Gilly Flower, Carnation, Tree Carnation, Remontant Carnation,
Semperflorens Carnation, Ever blooming Carnation, Forcing Pink,

PROM THEOPHHASTUS TO AKEGATIEBE. 15

Hardy Pinks, Sweet May Pinks, Scotch Pinks, Picotees, Hy-
brid Perpetual Pinks, Self, Fancies, Bizzars, Marguerites, Flakes,
Malmasons, and a score of other local names in Europe and Amer-
ica are given to the interminable varieties of the four mention-
ed primal species of the Dianthus genus of plants. All pinks
have a dwarfer growth than carnations, their leaves are more
profuse and grass-like, they grow in tufts, 10 to 15 inches high,
bloom profusely in a single crop, and will not stand forcing.

The lacings, shadings, blendings and markings, on the petals
of pinks are always transverse; those on carnations are parallel
with the axis of the petals.

In a work devoted exclusively to a single species of the Car-
yophyllus family of plants, I can only generalize the statement
that classes, orders and genera of the botanies are but divergent
varieties of parent plants, with their habits and natures modified
and rounded by different enforced climatic condition into so-called
species. The environments of Dianthus in Germany have differen-
tiated it into Bizzars, Selfs, Flakes and Fancies, which types are
perpetuated by layering the branches. In France they are modi-
fied into Malmasons, Marguerites, Border Pinks, and the types
continued by layering.

In 1597 Gard declared that there were so many varieties
of pinks that "a large volume would not contain a description of
them all." In 1613 Bessler figured a carnation flower at 3^
inches in diameter. In 1702 a John Ray catalogued 360 distinct
kinds of carnation pinks. In 1752 Philip Millens in his
"Gardeners' Dictionary" advised splitting the calyxes of carna-
tions with a knife to avoid their rupturing. In 1788 William
Curtis figured a Bizzars at 3^ inches across, and added, "that it
was not the most perfect flower of the kind, either in form or size."

In 1807, Martyn fixed 3} inches as the largest type of a car-
nation flower, on a strong, stiff stem from 30 to 45 inches long.
In 1840, carnations of the Malmason type in Europe are spoken
of as producing flowers 6 inches in diameter, which is confirmed
by Mr. Hill, who visited Europe in the interest of the carnation
a few years back.

16 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

The question is asked why were those magnificent carnations
with monstrous corollas spoken of in history as existing from
fifty to two hundred years ago discarded. • The answer is, they
were not carnations at all, in the sense the term is now used. They
had none of the elements that make Alegatiere's new species valu-
able, they were not perpetual bloomers, and could not be forced
to yield their flowers in a season when they were wanted. They
were highly stimulated pinks, Titanic flowering Picotees, mon-
strous Selfs, Bizzars or Fancies, which produced a few prodigious
blooms and died in the throes of parturition.

In 1775, Linnaeus having differentiated the various organs
of flowers and particularized their functions, seemed to make
artificial pollenization possible, and experiments were successfully
made on many species of flowers. Mons Dalmias, Schmitt and
Alegatiere, of Lyons, France, were the first men to attempt it on
the domesticated and improved species of cultivated carnations
chronologically referred to. Their crossings and re-crossings con-
tinued from 1844 to 1856, when Alegatiere evolved the first type
of the remontant carnation. The product of his crosses had stiff
lower stems, flowers 2 inches in diameter; they would bear forcing
and bloom continuously. In 1894 John Thorp predicted that this
species of carnation would evolve a flower 4 inches in diameter.

The conditions in America have developed the remontant car-
nation, the California thermal carnation, and also improved the
hardy pink. These differences have been fixed by heredity through
generations of plant life, prompted by local climatic conditions,
and are not successfully transferable from one of these localities
to another without requiring a corresponding period of adapta-
tion. No European or California carnation has ever been im-
ported into the remontant zone of America, and been immedi-
ately successful. The parents of the species with which we have
to do, grow wild through southern Europe. It was named Dian-
anthus Caryophyllus by Linnaeus, from the strong clove fragrance of
its flower; Caryophyllus being the botanical name of the clove, it
literally means the Clove Dianthus. It had nothing to distin-
guish it from its related species but its exhilarating perfume. It is

FROM THEOPHRASTTJS TO ALEGATIERE.

17

hardy above zero, while most of its cognate species are hardy be-
low zero. Its primitive habits stand today in strong contrast with
its evolved progeny.

DILLON'S QUEEN LOUISE.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF CARNATIONS FROM ALEGATIERE TO STARR,

1844 TO 1890.

IN 1876 the question arose, "where, how, when and by whom,
was the perpetual carnation originated ?" Jene Sisley, an
eminent and reliable horticulturist of Monplaiser, Lyons,
France, under whose personal observation the facts transpired,
wrote for the Revue- Horticole, a French journal, only ten years after
the circumstances occurred, the facts attending the origin of the
new species of carnations, in answer to the above question. In
1886, ten years later, Jene Sisley recapitulated the same facts,
and his article was published in the i4th number of the
American Florist.

The particulars cannot be more tersely stated than in the
language of Jene Sisley and we give his article verbatum.

"I think it may be of interest to horticulturists and amateurs,
to be informed of the carnation's history which I published ten
years ago in a paper of limited circulation. According to several
horticultural writers, the carnation was cultivated two thousand
years ago, but we know no more of what was practiced in those
times than in any other science; it is only since the beginning of
this century (igth) that the facts of nature have been really
studied, and we can only relate what has lately been practiced.

The perpetual carnation was originated at Lyons, France.
It was M. Dalmias, a celebrated amateur gardener to M. Lacene,
founder of the first Horticultural Society of that region, who ob-
tained the first really constant blooming carnation, in 1842. He
sent it out in 1844 under the name of Atim. It was the production
of an 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, and fertilized by
carnation Bielson.

This first gain was successively fecundated by Flemish carna-
tions, and in 1 846 Dalmais obtained a great number of varieties of
all colors.

FROM ALEGATIERE TO STARR.

M. Schmitt, a distinguished horticulturist of Lyons, followed
M. Dalmias, and obtained several fine varieties like Arc en eiel,
and Etolle Polaire, which were cultivated for several years, but
do not now exist, having been superseded by better kinds. In
1850, a desease having destroyed his collection, M. Schmitt aban-
doned their culture. Soon after, Alphonso Alegatiere undertook
the hybridization of carnations, and in a short time obtained great
success, dotting that series with a great many varieties, all par-
ticularly dwarf and obtained a very great improvement by creat-
ing those with stiff lower stems, about 1856. We can say Alega-
tiere originated a new species. He also upset the old system of
propagating by layering and has proved that propagation by cut-
tings is the best and most reasonable method, produces the best
plants and thus justified my saying that layering is the infancy of
ttie horticultural art. He also demonstrated that nothing is
easier than propagating carnations by cuttings, and 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 underneath being heated by hot water
pipes, to 60 or 70 degrees, and the cuttings will strike root in from
three to four weeks. The sand must be kept damp and the cut-
ting syringed every day. They can be placed out in April or May,
and will make fine plants to bloom in Autumn."

JKNE SISLEY,
Feb., 1886. Monplaiser, Lyons, France.

, Several species of the pink family of plants grew wild along
the Mediterranean shores and in southern Kurope, that had been
domesticated and cultivated for the beauty of their flowers. Their
strains, from this cause, became much improved. Linnaeus, the
great naturalist, in the first of the igth century described the male
and female organs of plants and the fertilizing properties of the
pollen. This discovery led to the possibility of fecundation of
plants being accomplished by artificial means. The universal
botanical interest Linnaeus awakened led the curious and ingenious
to experimenting with artificial pollenization. Hybridization was
accomplished, and cross fertilization became common with many
species of plants.

It is evident that Atim was the first recorded name of the per-
petual blooming carnations, the Adam of the race. But a new
species does not spring at once into existence full armored, booted

20 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

and spurred. The boundary between Atim and its successors and
Atim and its parents was vague and ill-defined. It required time
and heredity to round its successors into a species. Varieties
are the parents of species. Nature starts a variety at a single
fructification, but it requires generations of plant life to fix the
features of the variety into a distinct class. It has taken years to
eliminate ancestral vestiges from carnations, and unfold their
higher possibilities; and the end is not yet. Racial heredity is so
insistent that as late in the carnation's history as the first edition
of AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE the author found it necessary
to classify it into late and early, constant and cropping, 'short
and long stemmed classes, which divisions were founded on the
retained relics of their pre-natal types.

The species of carnation evolved by the labors of Dalmais,
Schmitt and Alegatiere had three important features of difference
from all its progenitors.

First. It was structural, had stiffer lower stems, and its an-
cestors had a sprawling and procumbent habit.

Second. It kindly responded to the stimulus of artificial heat
called forcing, which is death to its parental and all its generic
relations.

Third. It possesses inherently the power of distributing the
short-lived and immense single crop of bloom peculiar to its tribe
of plants throughout its entire mature life. By reason of these
three distinguishing peculiarities it has been called the perpet-
ual carnation.

It has been called the tree carnation, because its stems are
longer, more erect, rigid and tree-like than any of its associate
species. It is called the remontant carnation from its nature to
continually re -mount itself with flowers. It is called the sempei-
florens carnation from semper, (continuously) and flotens (flower,)
meaning continuously flowering. It has been called the clove
carnation because of the clove fragrance of its flower.

I have made diligent effort to obtain facts relating to the in-
troduction of carnations into America, and the result leaves little
that is legendary. A firm of florists on L,ong Island, composed

FROM A.LEGAEIERE TO STARR. 21

of Zeiler, Card and Dailledouze, in 1858, imported from Lyons,
some seed cross-fertilized by Alegatiere, who after Dalmias and
Schmitt became the representative of the new species of carnations
in France. So far as tradition and old records throw light on this
invoice of seed, but little came of it. There is not a single carna-
tion bearing a name until after this firm's second importation, in
1862.

In March, 1864, two years later, this firm issued a catalogue
which listed 125 named varieties of carnations. These were evi-
dently the product of seedlings or cuttings obtained from their
seedlings, imported the previous year. These varieties the firm
offered for sale in five-inch pots. The late Peter Henderson,
father of American horticulture, bought fifty of these plants, pay-
ing Zeiler, Gard and Dailledouze $1.50 a piece for them, the first
sale of carnations of any significance occurring on this continent.

Louis Zeiler obtained from Lyons, France, three batches of
carnation seed, and with the last in 1864, two plants, a pink and
a white, named respectively La Puritie and Edwardsii. It is an
error that the white La Puritie, cultivated until 1890, was the pink
La Puritie imported by Zeiler. There has been in cultivation four
La Purities, red, pink, white and variegated. Edwardsii was
doubtless not continued by cuttings. It was the practice with the
few florists, at populous points on the sea board, to raise their car-
nations from seed and grow them in pots; bench culture was
not then thought of. White carnations for years went under the
name of Boule de Neige, Peerless, Avalanch, Snow Ball, White
Perfection, Snow White, Edwardsii, etc.

According to the census of 1860 there were but 112 floral
establishments in the United States at the advent of carnations in
this country, and a large percentage of these were indifferent
about a new flower of European origin.

Astoria passes on the roster of publicity in 1864 as the first
native born carnation. It is credited to Wilson, and is possibly a
product of the 1862 or 1864 importation of seeds.

There followed in 1866, La Puritie and Edwardsii. In 1866
these imported plants are credited to Zeiler, who merely imported

22 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

them. They were the best productions of Alegatiere's cross-fer-
tilizing skill.

During this long time there was a dearth of new kinds of car-
nations continuing until 1875, when Charles Starr cross-ferti-
lized and obtained Lady Emma. In 1877 he obtained Chester
Pride; and in 1878, Buttercup. Then rapidly followed until his
death (Dec. 24, 1891) a series of over 50 marvelous enrich-
ments to the floral wealth of carnations.

Charles Starr in 1873, caused to be made the first engraving
of carnation flowers in America, and possibly in the world,
which was sent to the writer to illustrate the first edition of
AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE, in 1885. (See engraving)
He also wrote for the same work, the only scientific and practical
treatise on the classification, propagation and culture of hardy
pinks ever published in America. He was a devoted admirer of
the Dianthus family of plants. His life was an epoch in their his-
tory. Zeiler, Gard and Dailledouze, of Flatbush, N. Y., first
imported carnations to America. Charles Starr, of Avondale, in-
troduced and made them famous to the lovers of the beautiful.

CHAPTER III.

CARNATIONS FROM STARR TO SECOND YEAR OF TWENTIETH
CENTURY— IMPORTATIONS— YEARLY INTRODUCTIONS-
NUMBER OF NAMED KINDS-AN ANALYSIS
OF THE LIST.

THE entire genus of the Dianthus family of plants is na-
tives of Europe. Some of the indigenous species were
hybridized and the product cross-fertilized by Dalmias,
Schmitt and Alegatiere, which worked a revolution in their nature,
and established a new species of the Dianthus genus of plants.
There is not a variety of the pink tribe that will bear forcing and
bloom continuously; but the varieties originated by Alegatiere,
lya Puritie and Edwardsii, are the great-grand-parents of all the
remontant types of carnations in America today.

Since their introduction, forty-three yearsa go this spring,
they have multiplied varieties to eight hundred named kinds.
The originators' names of one hundred and twenty of this list
are unknown; about one hundred of the number have been im-
ported into the carnation belt from Europe, and seventy-five
from California; in the list are thirty known bud variations, or
sports, and six synonyms.

Things polarize at points. A hundred varieties of carnations
have originated close to where Lady Emma, the first cross-fertil-
ized carnation in America, germinated.

After January, 1897, I name yearly the most promising new
introductions, and their originators' names. During forty years
there has been concerned in the development of the carnation, one
hundred and forty different practical observing men, who have
furnished what they deemed acquisitions to the list of carnations.

Starr contributed, 55 Zeiler contributed, 9

Dorner 43 Creighton 9

Simmons " 40 Brinton " 7

24

AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE

Linton contributed, 32
Thorp " 26

Shehnire " 18

Hill " 12

Fisher 10

McGowen " 9

Hautell contributed, 5

Swayne 5

Wight 5

Larkins 5

Lonsdale " 5

Thirty originators have contributed less than five, and one
hundred and twenty-seven originators have contributed but one.
Many carnations were named but never disseminated, and many
more were disseminated that proved worthless; about fifty in the
list are marked improvements with strong individualized charac-
ters. The rest should quietly sleep in the catacombs of defunct
carnations.

The first edition of AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE, pub-
lished in 1885, the author secured from the growers of carnations in
fifteen different states a list of varieties they deemed most valu-
able at that time. They grew the following kinds, with preference
in the order named:

Portia

Prest. De Graw
Buttercup
Henzie's* White
Hdwardsii
Snowden
Grace Wilder
Crimson King
Grace Fardon
Chester Pride
Mrs. Joliff

Peter Henderson
T. Mangold
Chas. Henderson
Mrs. Carnegie
Queen of Whites
Scarlet Gem
Peerless
Alegatiere
Century
Prest. Gar field
Princess Louise

Robt. Craig

Snowball

Sunrise

Duke of Orange

Seawan

Othello

Astoria

Pride of Penhurst

Fisher's White

Sea Foam

The following comprises the varieties preferred by the grow-
ers in the first year of the twentieth century, fifteen years later.
Some growers, responding to enquiries this year, have named
three or four kinds of the same class of colors they grow. To
generalize and economize space, the first one named has been
chosen as their preference. The introductions of 1900 and 1901,
not being sufficiently tested by growers, are not named in the
twentieth century list of preferred kinds cultivated.

FROM STARR TO NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO. 25

WHITE SCARLET CRIMSON

White Cloud Crane Roosevelt^

Elm City Leopold Empress

D. R. Nuttirig Bon Ton Egypt
Flora Hill Estelle New York
Mary Wood Rosemont Maceo
Eastern Star Jubilee Gomez
Lizzie McGowen Joost

Norway Lady Emma

Glacier Portia

E. Crocker

PINK YELLOW

Sampson Golden Beauty

Avondale Gold Nugget

Daybreak Eldorado

Joost Buttercup

Scott

Triumph VARIEGATED

Marquis Bradt

Chapman Olympia

Lilly Dean

Pingree

The above two list show that the entire list of cultivated carna-
tions, even to the choicest varieties, are discarded, and new and
improved kinds substituted, in the space of fifteen years. In the
following lists of new carnations annually introduced, the leading
ones only are named. It is worse than folly to rescue from obliv-
ion the memories and names of dead carnations and lumber his-
tory with a long list that is never read.

Carnations Introduced in 1898.

CONCH SHELL— Grout. GOLD NUGGET— Dorner &

GENESEE— Harmon & Burr. Son.

ALBA SUPERBA— Burton. SERVIA— S. Fisher.

NEW YORK ~ Ward. BIRD-IN-HAND— E. Weaver.

GEN GOMEZ— Ward. GEN. MACEO -Ward.

ETHEL W7ARD-Ward. QUEENS— Ward.

EMILINE— Shelmire, PROGRESS— Shelmire,

26

AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

GOLD COIN— Hancock & Son.
MARY A. WOOD— Dorner &

Son.
HAPPY DAY— A. Wake.

FIREFLY— Hancock & Son.
MAUD ADAMS— F. Niquet.
KATHLEEN PANTLIND—
Hopp & Smoke.

BON TON— F. A. Blake.

Carnations Introduced in

ADMIRAL DEWEY— H.

Echolz.
ANNA EASTBURN— L. B.

Eastburn.

DUKE OF YORK— Shelmire.
EVANSTON— M. Weiland.
G. H. CRANE-Dorner & Son.
GOV. GRIGGS— I. Tiwell.
LIBERTY— Shelmire.
MARY A. BAKER— Eastburn.
MEPHISTO — American Rose

Co.

MRS. T. LAWSON— P. Fisher.
POTOMIE— American Rose Co.
S. S. PENNOCK— E. Weaver.

AMERICA— Hill & Co.

CHICAGO ~ Chicago Car-
nation Co.

DOROTHY MANDELL— H.
A. Cook.

GENEVE LORD— H. Weber.

GOLD NUGGET— Dorner &
Son

LUNA — American Rose Co.

MELBA— Craig & Son.

MOORE'S CRIMSON-
Moore.

OLYMPIA— J. May.

PROGRESS— Shelmire.

MARQUIS— L. E. Marquisee.

ADMIRAL SCHLEY— Fick & Faber.

Carnations Introduced in 19OO.

BELLE BUTE— Aldous & Son.
CLARA BURTON— Krets-

chemer.

BRILLIANT— McConnell.
CALIFORNIA GOLD— Sievers

&Co.

KEYSTONE— P. Heilig.
MME CHAPMAN-Crabb &

Hunter.

HELEN GOULD — Krets-

chemer.

OREGON— E. G Hill & Co.
SUPERIOR — E. McConnell.
P. HEILIG— P. Heilig.
IRENE— Crabb £ Hunter.
ELEANOR AMES & MAY

WHITNEY- Carmichael.
CHRISTMAS ROSE— Heilig.

CARNATIONS OF NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE. 27

SAXON— S. Fisher. DOROTHY FORBES-Heilig.

J. C. SIBLEY— P. Heilig. BELLE VISTA— J. Allen.

CONQUEST— T. Capers. ELM CITY— M. E. Kraus.

SIR T. LIPTON-H. B. Me- THE CRAWFORD— T.

Knight. Greaves.

THE COPELY— T. Greaves. MICHIGAN— A. R. Walker.

SYRACUSE— L. E. Marquisee. YOUNG AMERICAN— T. J.
ALMA— Casper Aub. Totten.

Carnations Introduced in 19O1.

NORWAY (white), Weber & Son.
EGYPT (scarlet), Weber & Son.
ESTELLE (scarlet), Witterstatter.
QUEEN LOUISE (white), Dillon.
MIDNIGHT SUN (crimson), Weaver.
LANCASTER (pink), Weaver.
MRS. L. BEHN (white), Specht.
MISS M. BEHN (pink), Specht.
MISS F. SPECHT (scarlet), Specht.
DELIGHT (pink), Dailledouze Bros.
PROSPERITY (white), Dailledouze Bros,
LORNA (white), Dorner & Son.
DOROTHY (pink), Graves.
CHALLENGER (scarlet), Hoffman.
TWENTIETH CENTURY (pink), Hoffman.
BRANDYWINE (white), Love.
M ANGUS (white), Lake.
EMPIRE STATE (white), Marquisee.
LENA (pink), Pyle.
BEAU IDEAL (pink), Pierce.
HOOSIER MAID (white), Rastnussen.
WHITE ROSE (pink), Nichols.
MRS. BIRD COLER (red), Molatsch.
MRS. P. HEILIG (pink var.), Heilig.
GEN. CHAS. MILLER (white), Heilig.

28 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

HABERNMEHL (pink), Kuhn.

MAID OF HONOR (pink), Binstead.

SUNBEAM (pink), Chicago Carnation Co.

BON HOMME RICHARD (white), Chicago Carnation Co.

NYDIA (variegated), Chicago Carnation Co.

PROUFICA (pink), Chicago Carnation Co.

GOV. WALLCOTT (white), Fisher.

EASTERN STAR (white), Fisher.

New Carnations to be Introduced
in 19O2.

CRESSBROOK (pink), Warburton.
HEILIG'S (white), Heilig.
MRS. NELSON (pink), Nelson.

The maximum diameter of the flowers of six of these
varieties the originators assert to be 4 inches with canes from 2
to 3 feet long. Ten of the originators declare the flowers of their
varieties never burst their calyxes. The startling prophecy of
Thorp is realized, the four inch carnation flower is here.

CHAPTER IV.

HYBRIDS AND CROSSES -NEW CARNATIONS— HOW TO FERTIL-
IZE-CHANCES FOR SUCCESS— OPINIONS OF EXPERTS.

CARNATIONS produce comparatively few seeds, most
double flowers being barren. High culture modifies their
generative organs, the stamens and pistils, into petals.
Mr. Rudd reports having obtained 72 mature seeds from one pod,
Mr. Dorner 1 16; but these are notable exceptions, from 10 to 20 be-
ing the more common number. Seed sown in the early fall will
grow, stand the winter with little protection and bloom the follow-
ing season. Most of them will be abnormal products and lapses into
primitive single types. When an improved specimen is, by acci-
dent, obtained, the only known method of continuing the variety
is by cuttings taken from this parent plant. The features of life
sculptured in Nature's work-shop are never changed. The torrent
of life in a mighty tree flowing through a little graft will not mix,
mingle or modify its life.

New carnations are obtained chiefly by crossing. A cross is
a sexual fertilization between two members of the same species.
Daybreak and Portia are two varieties of the same species. The
seed of one of these fecundated with the pollen of the other would
germinate and grow, and blow a flower different from either of its
parents. This would be a cross; and, by this law, varieties are
produced and may be indefinitely continued by cuttings from the
plant.

A hybrid is a sexual union between different species.

Dianthus Plumaris (Sweet William), is one species of the
genus Dianthus; order, Diggnia; class, Decandria.

Dianthus Semperflorens (common carnation), is a different
species. The seed of one of these fecundated by the pollen of the
other would produce a hybrid pink, likely to differ from its par-
ents in the ratio they differ from each other.

30 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Crossing in nature is not uncommon. Hybridization is ex-
tremely rare As a rule, in the animal and vegetable kingdoms,
hybrids are not fertile with themselves, but will easily breed back
into the original types. Nature reluctently consents to perpetuate
a mongrel race, but is circumvented by art, and the desired hybrid
is continued by layers, grafts or cuttings.

While crossing is common, hybridization is a difficult exper-
iment. Gaestner, high authority on hybridizing, says: "Out of
one thousand carefully conducted experiments, fecundation was
accomplished in only 259 cases." Hybridizing or crossing is
simply transferring the pollen of one flower to the stigma of an-
other, with cautionary measures taken to secure success. A cool,
damp atmosphere is inimicable to fertilization. The operator
must prevent the seed bearing mother from being fertilized with
its own pollen, and with tactful fingers, and delicate scissors,
carefully open the envelopes of the flower, as it is about to bloom,
cut away its stamens and apply the pollen, gathered from the
anthers of the male parent, on a camel hair brush, softly apply it
to the stigma of the mother flower, which then should be enclosed
in a gauze sack to prevent access of insects bearing other pollen.

Pollen retains its vitality for a long time after it is removed
from the flower; it is asserted, for weeks and months in some
species of plants. This is the artificial process for securing vari-
eties, and nature carries out the same method, with the aid of air
and bees for brushes, and chance for parents. The chances of ob-
taining a better variety than is in cultivation is less than one in a
thousand. A cross fertilizer may think himself fortunate if he
originates one carnation that will hold the boards for a period of
ten years against coming rivals.

Mr. Dorner crosses in January and February, sowing the
fertilized seed about the first of April in flats, transferring them
when rooted to pots, thence to the open ground where some will
bloom by August. His first selection is about one hundred of the
most promising, out of, say, two thousand plants. These are
transferred to the benches. This list is revised as frequently as

HYBRIDS AND CROSSES. 31

merits and demerits are determined, and he is fortunate, if out of
the whole batch, he is able to save two of sterling merit.

Peter Fisher says: "November is an ideal month for fertilizing.
If crossings are made in this month, the seed can be sown by the
first of February and have three months' growth before planting
out of doors, where most of them will bloom. I have had plants
bloom four and a half months from the time of sowing the seed.
Plants that bloom late have not much commercial value. Plants
of strong, fleshy growth are less productive of bloom than plants
of a wiry habit and narrow foliage. The pollen should be applied
on a bright sunny morning, and if impregnation takes place, the
bloom will wilt within twenty-four hours."

Many things are to be considered by the originator of new
carnations, as the selection of parents to secure in the progeny, size,
form, substance, color, length and strength of stem, none which
however, he can count on against chances. Wonderful possibili-
ties lie hidden in the capsule of a cross. The labor of a hybridist
is bewitchingly enchanting. He sees in the pollen grain an un-
leased spark of vital lightning; in a primal cell of the ovary, a
marvelous mixture of sexual forces that may wash new petals with
strange colors, toned in the wonderland of lite.

Carnations, as with all double flowers, perfect but few seeds.
The seed pods contain on an average twenty black seeds, and the
time to gather them may be known by the brownish appearance
of the seed vessel. Fertilized seeds are worth $1.00 per hundred,
and if sown as soon as gathered, they germinate sooner than
when long dried. They may be planted in pots, or flats, and kept
moderately warm and moist. Give plenty of air; when the second
leaf is formed, transplant into pots, and in time set out in the
open ground and treat them as rooted cuttings.

The first show of merit, or demerit in a cross is not perma-
nent: it may marvelously advance or recede in excellence before
it reaches the plane of its permanent habits. Mr. Dorner, an
eminent cross-fertilizer, says some of his less promising seedlings,
in the end, came out on top.

Carnation seedlings have unstable characters. Before they
reach the level of their true existence, they vibrate for years be-

32 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

tween vital statics ot the past and life dynamics of the present,
between the force of remote ancestry and the power of proximate
parents. Often the oscillating pendulum swinging in a plant of
great promise is snared by atavism and tied to a worthless type.
Mammoth Pearl was a carnation of unusal expectation, but lapsed
into degeneracy; Mars won the Cottage Garden Cup, but its
name fell from the roll of merit; Stuart won the Flagon at Indian-
apolis, but enjoyed only an ephemeral fame; Sea Gull won the
Silver Flagon at Madison Square exhibition in 1891, over Mc-
Gowen, and at once became a pervert, while its vanquished com-
petitor, McGowen, wore the tiara of Whites for years, and still
graces ermine laurels. Sea Gull served a purpose, it was the
symbol of evolution, the prophecy of possibilities, the herald of a
marvelous unfoldment. A life-size cut of Sea Gull, was fur-
nished this work by Mr. E. G. Hill. Possibly more seedlings
advance in excellence than degenerate, some of the best varieties
coming from seemingly unpromising seedlings. Jubilee was
beaten at Indianapolis in 1892 by a scarlet seedling that retired at
once from the stage. Flora Hill was outdone by Jack Frost, that
lives only in the cemetery of dead carnations.

Introducers should test their new carnations for five years be-
fore sending them out, and then accompany each invoice with a
statement of their habits and capricies so far as learned.

An account is given in the Garten FLori (German), of an arti-
fical cross fertilization between Dianthus Barbatus (Sweet Wil-
liam) ,and Dianthus Caryophyllus (Carnation). A few perfect seeds
were obtained which grew plants unlike either of their parents.
After repeating the operation for six years a plant was obtained
with many good habits. It blooms earlier than the common car-
nation. The experiments prove that it takes at least ten years
after being obtained, to fix the type of a hybrid carnation.

There has been an annual average of about thirty new car-
nations introduced since Mr. Starr originated L,ady Emma in i875t
A swelling tide set in, in 1885, when thirty -two were named. In
1886, eight; 1887, thirty -seven; 1888, sixteen; 1889, fifteen; 1890,
eight; 1891, seventeen; 1892, thirty-one; 1893, fifty-three; 1894,

OPINIONS OF EXPERTS. J58

fifty-five; 1895, one hundred and twelve; 1896, seventy-two;
1897, sixty; 1898, twenty-five; 1899, forty-five; 1900, forty;
1901, thirty-eight.

The extraordinary increase of new carnations in 1884-5 was
due to a large number of named seedlings from California. An
insuperable difficulty in determining the year of a carnation's in-
troduction is in the records confounding the year it is named, and
often advertised, with the year it is offered for sale or dissemi-
nation, The number introduced annually is only proximately
correct.

Mr. Witterstatter, a very reliable and laborious cross-
fertilizer says that most of the carnations he has exhibited and
put on the market were accidents and surprises, on the crosses
he made. He has kept a record of 2700 cross-fertilized seedlings;
he is modest enough to admit he never was behind life's curtain,
and knows nothing of the play of her secret unseen vital forces,
but thinks the, pollen parent most likely to influence color and
the mother parent the vigor of -the product. Beyond this he
knows nothing of the mysterious alchemy of heredity.

Mr. Dorner, also an eminent cross-fertilizer, says that if there
is any rule in cross-fertilization that he has learned, it is that the
lack in one parent should be supplied by the other; that color can-
not be depended upon at all; that two crimsons may beget a white.

Mr. Bissold, a practical cross -fertilizer, says that a man may
use a thousand seedlings and not get the same shade of colors as the
ones he uses. He never could obtain a yellow or dark pink.

The late Charles Starr was the pioneer cross-fertilizer and
rocked the cradle of new carnations in America. He introduced
them to public favor, and or ginated fifty new varieties in which
yellow and variegated colors predominated.

Mr. Fisher says further that he has raised strong growing
plants, evidently a new botanical creation, that would not yield
more than eight flowers the whole season. Varieties with wiry
stems and narrow foliage are invariably free bloomers. He thinks
flowers three and four inches in diameter can be reached on
plants with these primitive habits and of great floresence.

84 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Nature's laws of proportion are not guided by the optimistic
prophecies of cross-fertilizers. Four-inch flowers are reached,
but not on woody plants with narrow foliage and procumbent
habit, but on plants with broad fleshy leaves, great stems, mon-
strous nodes and fibrous roots feeding on gross humus, flourishing
in great heat, and circulating an immense volume of vegetable blood.

Variation is a basic law of nature, the primal source of
varieties, and the foundation of the cross-fertilizer's art. Some
species of plants possess the varietal tendency stronger than others.
Self-pollenization is no security against plant diversity. Mr. H.
Vetch asserts that wheat is self- fertilizing, that the pollenization is
effected in the bud and fecundation is impossible from foreign
sources, yet new varieties of wheat are constantly occuring in a
field, where all plants are surrounded with precisely the same con-
ditions.

The grosser structures of a new carnation are more easily
secured by the selection of male and female parents, than are color
and fragrance. Mr. Chas. T. Starr, obtained Buttercup, Duke of
Orange, Lady Chatting, Venus and Field of Gold, from a batch of
seeds crossed by Edwardsii, I^a Puritie and Astoria. It is a sing-
ular fact that most of Mr. Starr's fifty fine introductions belong
to the variegated class of colors, while other fertilizers have
been most successful with solid strains of colors. A new carna-
tion, be it an artificial cross or self-fertilized, cannot possess precise-
ly the same nature as either of its parents. There is a co- ming-
ling of sexual cells in the crypt of conception, to start a new life,
which is the unified product of the vital essence of different
parents, which must give it an idiosyncracy distinctively its own.
The carnation belongs to a class of plants that matures the
pollen before the pistil is ready to receive it. Nature revolts at
self-fertilization, and this provision in plants is a protest against
inbreeding. It gives time for the flowers to be fecundated by
foreign pollen, and only in default of this fact does it accept its
own pollen. This interval between the maturity of the pollen
and pistil of the same flower wonderfully favors the operations
of artificial cross-fertilization.

OPINIONS OF EXPERTS. 35

Mr, Thorp who disseminated many new varieties, says that
inbreeding with a batch of common blood seedlings is the quick-
est and surest way to obtain a definite and an individualized plant
and flower.

Mr. Swayne, who has originated some good carnations, says
that vigor in a plant is obtained by using pollen from single flowers
and that such pollen will beget as many double flowering seedlings
as will pollen from the stamens of a double flower.

The North Dakota agricultural station alleges that an excess
of food to plants is the cause of varieties. Food has no more to
do with the origin of varieties than maze fed to a mare has in be-
getting a mule. Varieties spring from opposite sexual forces
meeting and mingling in a conceptive cell.

A thousand carnation seeds will scarcely produce two alike.
They will be single and double, erect and sprawling, monstros-
ities and models, strong and weak, late and early, perverts and
paragons, with colors and shades that shame the chromatic scale.
But this is not strange, since nature never obliterates progress
once made, but embalms vestiges of it in all succeeding struct-
ures, atrophies and carries them forever to the front. If man
could rightly read the hieroglyphs nature etches on her creations
he would find the data of an unfolding history in everything
from a worm to a world. Man carries in his mind and body vesti-
gral relics, habits and homologues of every plane of organization
and civilization through which he has ascended since Adam bit
the apple.

The majestic harvester that kings the fields of golden grain
embodies all the mechanical appliances that have evolved for
gathering grain since Ruth gleaned the fields of Boaz. The pon-
derous locomotive that has continents for race courses, with oceans
for boundaries, is an epitome of all the practical devices of apply-
ing steam as a motive power, since Watt saw the imprisoned
demon lift the lid of the boiling kettle. It is to these retained,
conflicting hereditary forces that carnations owe their erratic, ver-
satile and capricious nature. Vital vestiges and ancestral forces of
all the species from which it sprang are hidden as latent relics, in

36 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE

a carnation gerin, ready to frescoe their features on every new
carnation's life, since astonished Theophrastus exclaimed Dio
Anthos.

New species are permanently established in opposition to the
tireless tendency of plants to lapse to their primitive types. The
principle on which it is done is fully explained in a quotation
from Asa Gray.

"When an offspring inherits the peculiarities of its immedi-
ate parents, its offspring has a redoubled tendency to do the same
and the next generation still more; the tendency to be like the
parent, grand parent and great grand parent, conspires to over-
power the influence of a remoter ancestry."

A species is initiated by a variety, but its fixity is the culmi-
nation of conspiring generations. lya Puritie, the stable type of the
remontant species of carnations, was the product of a dozen cross-
fertilizing conspirators from 1844 to 1856. The new species, Di-
anthus Superba, with grosser structure, stiffer stems, larger
flowers, requiring more heat, greater moisture and different nu-
trients, is the culmination of a hundred cross-fertilizing conspira-
tors during forty years to evolve a species of carnation to meet
their higher ideals.

Mr Peter Fisher thinks it possible to obtain a strain of car-
nation s that will come true from seed. This may happen when
nature reverses its law of diversification and starts unifying the
vegetable kingdom.

It is natural for originators to make pets of their seedlings,
maximize their merits and minimize their faults. They boom
them into notority by seductive advertising, the sorcery of half-
tone engravings, and, possibly, some financial plunger, who does
not know a corolla from a calyx, will offer a mythical sum of
money for a new variety, and confer upon it the name of his wife
for its stunning effect on the trade.

There are on an average twenty new carnations introduced
every year; the originators are chargeable with a knowledge of
their merits by the venesected purchasers of stock from the time
they hold a proprietary interest in the new creation, and have

CHANCES FOR SUCCESS 37

some rights in an adjective name. The trade should prefix the
originator's name to every new carnation purchased, as, Dil-
lon's Queen Louise, Ward's Roosevelt, Dailledouze's Prosper-
ity, Weber's Norway, Fisher's Lawson, Witterstatter's Estelle, etc.
It would make men who put new carnations on the market
more cautious about their intrinsic merits, to know their names
were to be prominently associated with their failure or success.
It would be an assurance to the trade, and start a new roster of
more rythmical names for carnations. To the originators, at
first, it might appear critically bold, but they should not be super-
sensitive, when they now walk without emotion through the
necropolis of history and see their perfunctory certificates of
character in brackets decorating the graves of from five to fifty of
their own defunct carnations.

I would put the carnation's name in parentheses and the
originator's name in base relief to show that they accomplished
much or little.

A great fertilizer merits a fame fit to sit beside Alegatiere's.
An adventurer riots on the money of his victims.

It is amusing to hear some cross-fertilizers expatiate on how
they led "Dame Nature" through the avenues of ancestral life
and corraled her as a paragon of merit. History .says that King
Canute threw away his sceptre, abandoned his throne and hung
his crown on the brow of a sculptured Christ, but there is no
instance on record of nature surrendering her empire, and hand-
ing her sceptre over to a pollen monger. Cross-fertilizers have
by accident accomplished much, but they are as ignorant of the
play of hereditary and vital forces as they are of their own destiny.
A fertilizer thinks he has imprisoned in some seed pods parental
force that will write his name beside Alegatiere's; he sows, grows
and flowers his thousand prize seeds. Fifty per cent of the batch
have lapsed to the single type that grew on the shores of the
Mediterranean two thousand years ago; some look a little like the
male parent, others like the mother plant, and the rest like
neither; but, like the hardy garden pink, some are freaks like a
"double headed calf," ' 'bearded woman" and "a what is it"

38 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

After the lapses, decadents, perverts, derelicts, nondescripts, mon-
strosities and degenerates have been eliminated there may remain
half a dozen creditable flowering plants, few of them as good,
possibly one or two better, than existing kinds. The humble
cross- fertilizer is as likely to obtain a grand carnation as those
professional seedling raisers, who read learned and romantic
disquisitions before societies on how their marvelous wisdom
inveigled nature to serve their ideal purposes. There are very
few originators of new carnations, but conscientiously believe
their products are meritorious. The great dangers lies in over
faith in their excellence.

There is no possible way of determining the sterling com-
mercial value of a carnation, but by general trial in different
sections of the carnation belt. The storm center of interest and
enthusiasm in carnation culture is wrapped up in new carnations,
in their adaptability to localities and in their hidden possibilities
they enfold, ardor, zeal, hopes, aspirations and poetry. Strike
new carnations from the contingent of a grower's labor and it
degenerates into dull routine and spiritless prose. Then, the few
seeds from a single pod may contain the germ of a world winner.
Henzie's White, the most robust and defiant carnation in the
roster of the royal line, was in a pod incidentally plucked from a
plant that had stood out all winter in the latitude of Detroit.
Seeds in the same carnation capsule produce plants as divergent as
seeds from different ones. It is estimated that not more than
one carnation seedling in a thousand is honored by the growers
of new varieties even with a name. About twenty-five new car-
nations are introduced annually, and not more than one of these
takes rank as a general favorite, like McGowen, Portia, Day-
break, Scott, etc; so every first class commercial carnation is finally
the selection of forty thousand seedlings.

CHAPTER V.

LIFE LIVES IN CELLS— CONTINUING LIFE BY CUTTINGS— THE
CONDITIONS REQUIRED— DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A
CUTTING AND A SEEDLING-KIND OF CUTTINGS-
TIME TO STRIKE THEM.

A CELL is the unit of life. In a seed it lives in a single cell,
with power to live and add to itself new cells. A poly-
pus cut into a hundred parts, each piece will grow a per-
fect polypus. An expert English propagator recently died in
Chicago whose keen preception of required conditions, it is said,
enabled him to root cuttings from any hard wood plant or tree
that grows. In a cutting, life exists in many cells already formed
with prove to multiply themselves. A slip severed from a par-
ent plant faces death which only human sagacity prevents; experi-
ence has demonstrated that if it is placed in pure sand with proper
moisture, heat, light and air, it will develop roots and perpetuate
itself.

The law of life, as announced by the venerable Thomas Mee-
han, has been vindicated by twenty years of observation, viz:
"Nature in the vegetable kingdom always makes an effort to con-
tinue life in the ratio of its danger ot death." Extinction, or per-
sistence, confronts cell life in a cutting, and it struggles for con-
tinuance. The features, habits and all the qualities of a seedling
carnation are fixed the moment ancestral life-forces meet, mix and
mingle in a primal cell, in the ovarian crypt. That method of
treating carnation cuttings and plants is the best which is closest
along the line of character nature has impressed on the species.

Henzie's carnation, the Napoleon of American whites, origi-
nated in Detroit. It was the seedling of a plant that had remained
out unprotected the previous winter, and the parent of millions of
cuttings before it met its Waterloo against the resistless legions of
better kinds.

40 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

In cross-fertilization there is union by fission in the germ cell
of two varieties, and a different entity of life is established. There
is no difference between self-fertilization, and propagating by cut-
tings; they both have the same plasm and spring from the same
primordial cell, except homogenity which is lost by the union of
diverse sexual forces. Propagating by cuttings is not devitalizing;
production by seed is rejuvenating.

The lack of knowledge of a carnation's nature has sent many
good varieties early to the necropolis of extinct kinds. Buttercup
,was obtained by Chas. Starr from L,a Puritie, fertilized with the
pollen of Astoria. The first carnation born in America by arti-
ficial cross fertilization is still cultivated.

Dailledouze, Ward, Weber, and others say they now succeed
fairly with Buttercup when grown through the summer under
glass. If summer glass meets the erratic wants of capricious But-
tercup, it will have found De Soto's fountain of perpetual youth,
and its bewitching wealth of colors will perpetuate the name of
Starr longer than the marble slab above his grave at Avondale.

The vigor of a variety can be maintained indefinitely by
careful culture, but new Tdnds will relegate them in the race of
evolution.

CUTTINGS.

Successful carnation growing starts with the proper selection
and treatment of cuttings. To secure vigor and avoid deterioration
of plants and flowers, it is of the very first importance to begin
with an absolutely healthy cutting. There is some difference of
opinion among growers as to the part of the plant from which cut-
tings should be taken. In a cutting is hidden the life forces of its
parent plant, its merits and demerits, its weakness and its vigor; life
in a cutting can raise no higher than its fountain, but may grade
down, and emphasize its parents defects at the time it was taken
from the parent stem. In this lies all there is in carnations run-
ning out. The only question to consider is the health of the crop,
and not the dogma of any grower. Cuttings should be taken from
stock that has not been over forced, or fertilized. Cuttings four
inches long taken as side shoots from flowering canes make goo4

HANDLING YOUNG CARNATION PLANTS.

41

cuttings and are at the same time a species of pruning and disbud-
ding for crown flowers. Cuttings taken near the top of the
plant contain in them more advanced flower germs than those se-
cured at the base of the plant, and are more likely to bloom earlier.
Aside from this fact it is immaterial from what part of the plant
the cuttings are taken. The upper parts of plants have better
light and ventilation and therefore are healthier than shoots around
their base. No cuttings showing signs of shooting a bud should
be used. The cutting crop is usually considered secondary to the
crop of bloom. Early struck cuttings should be carried from two
into four-inch pots if necessary.

The period of striking carnation cuttings is from August to
April. Plants of later varieties, and those designed for early in-
side, or out-of-door blooming, should be struck in the early part of
this period. A rooted cutting advances a carnation's life ninety
days over one germinated from a seed.

HANDLING YOUNG CARNATION PLANTS.

Figure 1.— Wrong position for a cutting in the sand

42 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

The propagating bench should be thoroughly cleansed, and
a thin wash of lime spread over the bottom and sides, then filled with
four inches of washed sand, absolutely free from all impurities,
smoothed down; and incisions three inches apart should be made in
the bed with a trowel, guided by a lath. In these incisions, the
cuttings are deftly and vertically set, two inches deep and a
half inch apart, the sand firmed with the point of the trowel
along each line of cuttings and then thoroughly wet with a fine
rose nozzle.

Carnation cuttings in the sand should be moistened daily,
have good ventilation, and be screened from the sun by a curtain
of muslin, and not by laying paper or anything else over the top.
of the cuttings. In the proper temperature, the severed ends of
the cuttings will at once begin to callous, or cover themselves
with a root epidermis from which cell growth will rapidly elon-
gate itself into roots. Cuttings will root in from two to four
weeks. The variation of time rests with the varieties, and in the
degree of top and bottom heat used. Ninety-five per cent
of some varieties will root while of other kinds only about fifty
per cent.

Small growers often use flats filled with sand in the absence
of a formal propagating bench.

Before the cuttings are excessively rooted they should be
carefully lifted and transferred to pots, or flats, in moderately en-
riched sandy soil and kept in a temperature for a time but slight-
ly lower than that of the bench from which they were removed,
carried thriftily forward, and gradually hardened off for field cul-
ture.

Care should be taken in transferring plants from the sand to
pots, or flats, that their fragile rootlets are not broken, as it takes
time to repair the damage and works in the flats for them a re-
newal of cutting bench methods.

At first, two and a half-inch rose pots are preferred. They
increase labor and care over flats, but are transplanted with less
injury to the plants in the open ground. Flats, if used, should be
two feet square, three inches deep, with four auger holes in the

HANDLING YOUNG CARNATIONS. 43

bottom for drainage. The rooted cuttings should be planted in
the flats in exact rows, two and a half inches apart, each way,
and the soil moderately firmed between them. The flats should be
transferred to the field. With a sharp case knife, cut equal
distance each way, between the rows of plants, to the bottom of
the flat, and if properly rooted, each plant will lift out with a ball
of earth adhering to its roots.

Some successful growers, as a precautionary measure against
"Rust," immerse their cuttings both before they are inserted in
and after they are taken from the sand in a fungicide solution;
care being taken not to involve the severed ends, or rootlets in
the mixture.

An effective formula for such a wash consists of

Potash i Ib.

Fish Oil 3 pts.

Water 2 gals.

Prof. Baily has experimented with a number of cuttings
taken from three different parts of a plant as follows:—

i st. — Bottom shoots make vigorous plants with broader
leaves, stockier stems than any others, and are fuller of bud germs,
but bloom later.

2nd. — Lateral shoots from stems are less robust, have narrow
leaves, but bloom as freely as the first kind.

3d. — Cuttings taken from the base of plants are weak, poor,
and without much bloom or promise.

There are carnation plants lifted late preternaturally robust
and strong, with leaves and stems that are diseased. Their
vegetative vigor has partially exlinguished their reproductive
forces. A fat cow gives but little milk. Nature is frugal: when it
lavishes in one direction it economizes in another. If undue vital
forces of a carnation plant are expended on the leaves and stems, it
saves up on petals and stamens, which are but modified leaves.
The equilibration of their vegetative and reproductive forces is
destroyed, and petals are aborted in the interest of leaves, and flowers
in favor of foliage. In high grade flowers on diminutive plants, un-
der summer glass, these functions of plant life are just reversed.

44 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Cuttings taken from either class of such plants will perpetuate,
for a time, these features of their parents, being comparatively
barren or tentatively fruitful of flowers.

Propagating by cuttings is not an unnatural process for con-
tinuing species. Nature adopts it in the segmentary process of
many plants, and by the agamic process in the lower orders of
the zoophyte kingdom. The greenfly largely perpetuates itself by
nodules that develope themselves on the inside of the walls of
their abdomen, from which they separate, and are born living
insects.

TEMPERATURE.

The temperature employed in striking cuttings is a matter on
which growers do not fully agree, but it can be largely settled by
the laws of vegetable physiology. It is presumption for any
one man to say this is the proper temperature, or that is the
better cutting, if it is not along the lines of plant life. The
temperature for the cutting bench should, for a few days, be no
higher than that in which the plants were kept, from which the
cuttings were taken.

The heat used for rooting varies with different propagators.
Some use no bottom heat, maintaining merely the common green-
house temperature of 65 to 70 degrees; others use bottom heat, the
sand being 10 degrees above the house heat. The ideal tempera-
ture for rooting cuttings is 60 degrees for the sand and 40 degrees
for the house.

CHAPTER VI.

CARNATIONS IN THE FIELD— PREPARATIONS FOR THEIR FIELD

LIFE—THE SANITARIUM FOR CARNATIONS— PRECAUTIONS

AGAINST FAILURE— NUMBER OF PLANTS GROWN

TO AN ACRE.

THERE has been a profusion of literature about the soil suit-
ed to the carnation plant. With data gathered through
years and as comprehensive as the carnation field of
America, the author is not disposed to attach to the soil the import-
ance that has been given to it. Soil is the most tangible thing an
observer sees to ascribe success, or failure with carnations, which
is the source of its prominence.

It is an unquestioned fact that carnations reach high develop-
ment in sandy loam, limestone, argillacious and micaceous soils.
The Massachusetts experimental station has grown superior carna-
tions in coal ashes and peat. Every carnation grower has his pre-
ferred soil, and it is always the kind in which he has made a success
in growing them. My ideal carnation field would be a sandy loam
with an adhesive element of clay, with a northern inclination.

There are but few points on which American carnation grow-
ers are a unit. One is that the plants should be set in the field
for summer growth as soon as the condition of the ground and
weather in the spring will permit.

The open field is the sanitarium of carnation plants. It
brings them for a time in close touch with the great healthy heart
of nature where they receive a fresh baptism in the eternal flame
of life. Mythology says that Antaeus received new strength every
time he kissed his mother earth. In the ratio of distance, in treat-
ment or geography, plants are removed from their normal condi-
tions and natural habit, they sport. Their natures become infertile
and they refuse to continue their species; the carnation is largely
seedless as most all double flowers are.

46 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

The carnation plat, if it does not possess a gravelly or sandy
sub-soil, must be well underdrained, given a coat of well rotted
manure, and, as a precaution against stem-rot, a light spread of
lime or wood ashes. The ground should be deeply plowed, thor-
oughly pulverized, evenly rolled and acurately marked out, ten
inches each way for a hand cultivator, and ten inches by three feet
for horse cultivator, cavities being made at the cross sections of
the markings with a half-round trowel in which the roots are in-
serted, the dirt pulled around them and made firm with the fingers.
If the field is of doubtful sub-drainage, planting the carnations
on slightly elevated ridges may fortify the crop of plants against
great damage from excess of wet. The time for transplanting
carnations in the field in the carnation zone ranges from the loth
of April to the loth of May. Frost or a moderate freeze will not
injure the plants if they are properly ''hardened off", which can
not be determined by the appearance of the plants, but by the treat-
ment they have received in their transition from greenhouse heat
to outside temperature. The hardiest plants may be killed in
being transferred at once from under greenhouse glabs to the open
ground. The average of a carnation's life in the field is four
months; during this time the ground should be frequently super-
ficially stirred. The hand cultivator is altogether the preferable
implement, but when the acreage is large it is laborious. The ac-
cepted and rational principle applied to crops in agriculture, as to
rotation, applies with equal force to carnations, not however on the
ground of food elements in the soil being exhausted by the crop,
but on the theory that every species of vegetation grown long on
one spot attracts hordes of its own particular insectivorous and bac-
terial enemies to the place as a base of supply and breeding
grounds.

The "greenfly," "thrips," "root nematoides," wet and dry
"stem rot," are caused by insectivorous and bacterial germs,
that especially find congenial food in the Dianthus genus of
plants. Changing the location of carnation fields must disarrange
their multiplication. The Dianthus family of plants are hardy in
the temperate zone. Adaptation by selection is breeding carnations

NUMBER OF PLANTS TO THE ACRE. 47

from their ancestral nature, but many parental vestiges will never
be eliminated from them. A black colored soil will maintain six to
eight degrees higher surface summer heat than a light colored
soil. Observing growers have noticed that vegetative processes are
as completely arrested in carnation plants during extreme periods of
summer heat as if the thermometer indicated 32 degrees. For this
reason a northern inclination of a carnation field is to be preferred
and is a concession to the low temperature relic that still lingers
in carnations.

Carnations in the field are subject to all the troubles that as-
sail them on the benches, but the vigor of life from normal condi-
tions, forms a greater resistance to their depredations than the
artificial restraints of housed plants. The fungus of "root rot" is
the most destructive enemy of carnations in the field. There are
records of a large per cent of the crop of plants being ruined by
this parasite. (See chapter on fungous diseases of carnations).
When it is deemed necessary to use liquid fungicides, insecticides,
or fertilizers on carnations in the field, the rows of plants can be
straddled by a hand cart, holding a vessel containing the material,
and with a good spray pump, quite a broad span of the plants can
be reached. In carnation fields of large area, an eight foot road-
way is left unplanted at convenient widths for a horse and cart
hauling a barrel, for watering or treating the plants medicinally.
It should not be forgotten that stirring the soil is a partial antidote
for drouth in all soils sufficiently compact to admit of the capillary
attraction of sub-surface moisture.

The number of carnation plants that can be grown on an acre,
set fifteen inches apart each way, for hand culture, is nearly 28,-
ooo. If planted six inches apart in the rows, and the rows three
feet apart for horse cultivation, about the same number can be
grown.

CHAPTER VII.

CARNATIONS FROM THE FIELD TO THE BEDS OR BENCHES-
EARLY AND LATE LIFTING— WET AND DRY WEATHER
—BENCH PLANTING— WATERING AND SHADING.

THERE has been a revolution in the last few years in regard
to the time of housing field carnations. Many are now
lifted as early as August. They bloom earlier and find
a better market. Mr. Hartshorn, an up-to-date grower, com-
manding a good market, houses his carnations by the first of
July, allowing them only eight or ten weeks of field life and
claims he has splendid results. Some growers do not plant in
the open ground, but turn their plants out of the pots into bench
soil in April and grow them continuously under glass where they
commence blooming about the first of October. The advocates
of this system and its modifications, assert that they obtain a higher
grade of flowers, strike a scarcer market, and realize a better price,
which fully compensates for the additional cost and labor the
plan involves.

A solution of the rebus for obtaining a supply of carnation
flowers from July to November is involved in the unquestioned
law of vegetable physiology, viz:

"Each species of plants requites a certain number of units of
heat and light to complete its coiirse of vegetation. The mean
temperature and sunlight multiplied by the member of days gives the
sum of heat and light requited for its developement. If the mean
temperature and light is lowered, the number of days must be in-
creased', if increased, the number of days must be lowered"

A carnation cutting struck in January, will ordinarly bloom
in November. If it was struck two, four, or six months earlier,
would it not, according to the quoted law, reach its blooming
period correspondingly earlier, abating the loss of heat and light
for winter days ? I am not aware of well defined experiments

EARLY AND LATE LIFTING. 49

on this line, but it opens up quite a field and may solve the
question of growing carnations under glass, early and late lifting,
and a constant and uniform succession of carnation flowers.

Carnations are now generally lifted between the first of
August and the fifteenth of September. A successful grower
thus summarizes his practice : "I strike my cuttings the first of
January, plant them out as soon as the weather permits and lift
them the first of September. Keep the house at night at a tem-
perature of 50 degrees and day heat at 65 degrees. Fertilize them
with old cow manure, mixed with ground bone and air-slacked
lime, and I never fail to have a full crop of bloom at Christmas
and Easter."

Carnations can be rapidly lifted in the field with a light con-
cave spade and, as raised, grasped by a helper, and without adher-
ing dirt, laid parallel in boxes of convenient size. It requires
five men to lift, transfer and bench plants rapidly. It was an
early custom to plant in clay soil and lift the plant with a ball of
dirt around its roots. Experience has demonstrated that there is
no advantage in this mode and it greatly adds to the labor.

An extensive grower says he prefers to lift his carnations in
dry weather. To use his own language, "They stand in need of
drink, absorb the water given them, wilt and blight less than
when transplanted from wet soil." There is a .vestige of vege-
table biology in this assumption. A plant from a dry soil is not
distended with fluids and would apparently, if not really, suffer
less wilting on the suspended absorbtion of fluids by the roots
that inevitably follows transplanting. This interrupted absorb-
tion is compensated to an extent by shading and a drenching wet-
ting given carnations on their removal to the house. Wet and
shade closes the plant's stomata, or the exhaling pores, and
arrests the evaporation of its fluids. There is no philosophy that
controverts the assumption that plants should be transferred from
the field to the benches with as little shock to their vegetable
system as is possible.

Excavations are made in the pulverized bench soil to the
bottom and the roots of the plants inserted to the depth they
grew in the field, the soil being pulled around and firmly pressed

50 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE

with the fingers. The plants are set eight or ten inches apart each
way and two inches from the edge of the bench. Some knowl-
edge of the dwarfer and grosser growing kinds is a factor in the
planting distances. Plants should be graded as to the size, and
the smaller ones from the field potted to fill vacancies that may
occur on the benches, and if carried cold through the winter, will
make magnificent blooming pot plants in the spring. No car-
nation will give satisfaction in less than a six- inch pot. Soil on
the benches should be not less than five inches deep and but little
richer than that in the field. A rich soil is detrimental to the
plants until they are established and begin to feed.

The carnation is a well defined biennial ; the leading pecul-
iarity of a biennial is that it lives two years, interrupted midway
in its life by the coma of a winter's cold. The forces of its life in
these two seasons have entirely a different trend The first
season is devoted exclusively to the vegetative developement of
the plant ; the second season, its life is given over to reproductive
energies, to strenous efforts to continue its species of which flowers
are incident.

All biennials have a vegetative and a reproductive stage of
life and a coma of life's forces between these stages. They can
then be lifted and replanted without the least disturbance of vital
activities When the vegetative stage has culminated, is the time
to lift carnations; it may be difficult to determine that stage, but
this is the last analysis of the lifting question. It is also a solu-
tion of why carnations that even approach the torpor stage in
biennial life can bear removal, as no annual or perennial will.

Adaptation by selection and greenhouse methods have con-
verted the carnation into an annual with a lengthened season;
but its stages of life will ever be marked with puberty and
adolescence and maturity, vegetative and reproductive forces, in the
biography of its life. Frequently these two vital energies become
deranged and abnormally developed. Every grower has met
with great, strong, robust carnation plants comparatively sterile
of flowers. The vegetative energy has extinguished its reproductive
life, consequently the plant is diseased. In growing carnations

CARNATION NORWAY. 51

under glass through the summer, the augmented units of sun.
light and heat abnormally develops the plant's reproductive forces,
and the large flowers are the products of a destroyed equilibrium
in the plant's natural and healthful momentums.

NORWAY.

This carnation originated with Webber & Son, of Oakland, Md., and
first disseminated in 1901.

CHAPTER Vltt.

SOLID BEDS— SUB- WATERING BEDS— RAISED BENCHES WITH

WOODEN, SLATE AND TILE BOTTOMS— TESTIMONY

OF CARNATION GROWERS— SOIL FOR BEDS

AND BENCHES.

THERE are but two fundimental principles in the con-
struction of beds or benches for carnations in the house.
They involve sub and surface heat to the roots of the plants.
The old style wooden bench is too well known to need a descrip-
tion. It may be constructed chiefly of iron with a slate or tile bot-
tom. Messrs. Bassett and Washburn prefer an elevated bench
bottomed with two-inch drain tile, laid close together, and sup-
ported by cross timber corresponding to the length of the tile. The
Vessy bench has advocates and theoretically possesses some mer-
its. I give the originator's description.

"We raise the surface of the ground twelve to twenty-four
inches as desired, and hold it in place on each side of walk with two-
inch hemlock, well coated with cement on the inside. This bed is
made level and firm. Upon this we lay four-inch common drain
tiles as close together as they can be laid. Above this we put
hemlock side boards eight inches wide to hold the soil for plants,
which is put upon the tiles. The boards above and below are
held in position by two by four pieces at the ends of the boards,
and are stayed across at intervals of about four feet with strong
galvanized wire. This bed affords perfect drainage, a cool, airy
bottom, lasts longer and holds a greater weight than do raised
benches of wood with tile bottoms."

Beds for carnations can be made directly on the floor of the
house. They can be elevated eighteen -inches to two feet on com-
mon earth laterally supported by a cemented course of brick or
planks, which adds to the convenience of the constant attention
they require during their in-door life.

The sub-watering bed is described and illustrated in the
chapter under that head. Solid beds and raised benches are still

TESTIMONY OF CARNATION GROWERS. 53

in their disputative era. It is possible that the most practical
and economical house bed, or bench, for carnations, has not yet
been evolved, and habits of varieties may yet determine it.

An experienced grower on both beds and benches writes:
"Bradt and Olympia will not do on solid beds. I find no difference
between Gomez and Croker on beds or benches. White Cloud has
done the best of any of the whites on beds "

Another observing grower, on both beds and benches, says:
"I do not get as many flowers off of my carnations in beds as on the
benches by ten per cent, but this loss is fully retrieved by less
care for the plants and less cost of beds than benches."

A medley of opinions from leading growers as to the relative
merits of solid beds and raised benches, for raising carnations, like
the following have been received, which shows that the question has

not yet crystallized into a uniform or scientific shape. "Carna-
tions are more disposed to burst their calyxes on solid beds."
"Carnations grow with great vigor on solid beds but produce less
flowers." "I like beds for some varieties and benches for others."
"I want no beds." "I would change all my benches to beds if
my houses were suited for it." "Beds are better in the summer,
and benches in the winter."

There are a few unquestioned facts relative to beds and
benches for carnations. Beds are the cheapest in the long run, a
more uniform moisture is maintained for the roots; they require
less attention to watering, the plants are more robust, and if they
produce less early, they yield more flowers later; the crop of bloom
cannot be so well forced on beds; though more vigorous they are
not as a consequence more florescent. Some varieties of carnations
may improve on one or the other of these conditions, but the list
is not determined. Benches generally are more elevated, and more
convenient for working with the plants; the heating pipes are by
the side, or a few inches beneath the bottom of the benches,
and the forcing of the susceptible nature of this plant is placed
under immediate control. Plants on benches are nearer the
glass; the roots subjected, if desired, to more or less heat; restricted
as to quanity of earth; all three of these tend to develop the re-
productive features of the plants which culminate into flowers.

54 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Beds, benches, growing under glass, and a knowledge of the
blooming periods of varieties are the four factors destined to solve
the problem of a constant and uniform succession of carnation
bloom. God gave the plant. It is for man to evolve the plan.
There are enough facts and physiology now possessed to inaugu-
rate it within a year.

SOIL FOR BED AND BENCHES.

The depth of the soil on the benches has passed through its
controversial era; it was fought on the extremes of from two and
one half to eight inches, and each had advocates; five inches is
now accepted as the economic mean. Whatever mode is adopted
to sustain the soil, sub-drainage must be perfect, the soil should be
compact and not too rich in humus. It is easy to supply fertilizers
and difficult to diminish them. Some growers displace all the
bench soil every year, and substitute fresh; others remove a part
and add a proportional amount of new soil. This practice does not
arise from an impoverishment of the bench soil by the crop, but
as a matter of precaution against possible bacterial germs in the
old soil.

Science has long known and experience has proved that soils
contain countless microscopic bacterial organisms. Some classes
of these microbes promote vegetative growth by transforming the
nitrogen of humus into a condition to. be absorbed by the roots,
and assimilated by the plant. They are nitrogenizing microbes,
and are beneficial to plant life.

There is a different class of germs in all soils that work just
opposite results. Their function in life is to dissipate nitrogen and
starve the plant. They are de -nitrogenizing microbes. The heat
and moisture maintained in greenhouses, makes culture beds for
these prenicious soil germs. Experience has proven that safety
against them is in the annual substitution of fresh soil. No soil for
benches is better than old disintegrated sods from an old pasture, but
never taken from near trees, fences or hedges. There the sod or
soil is full of microbes, pupas, and puncturing pests. After being
transplanted, carnation plants should be shaded from the direct

HOW TO SHADE CARNATIONS. _^55

sun for a week or ten days. A deep shading for the glass, lasting
a brief period, is made of lime and water, or yellow clay, thinned
with water, strained and applied with a brush or spray pump. A
more permanent shading is made of naptha and white lead, re-
duced to the appearance and consistency of skimmed milk, applied
moderately at first, and deepened as the sun in the spring gains
power.

I quote from M. G. Kains, a very intelligent view on shading
.glass over carnations with preparations of lead and the means to
be used in removing the same.

' 'The removal of white lead from greenhouse roofs is a tedious
and more or less difficult job The florist should welcome any
method that will lighten this labor and reduce the risk of the
breakage of glass. When this shading is to be applied as a liquid
with naptha, by means of a spray pump, the powdered paint
should be purchased; not the paint as it is usually bought in drums
or cans. If the latter be used the shade will be much harder to
remove in any case, and the method of removing it described be-
low will work much less effectively. The reason for this is that
the oil in the mixed paint forms a coating of itself upon the glass,
independent of the lead , and is not acted upon by the acetic acid
used to remove the lead, only a portion of which can be reached.
If adulterated white lead be used the recipe will be useless, be-
cause the adulterant commonly used in white lead is barium sul-
phate, a substance not soluble in acetic acid.

When pure lead is used, mix one part of strong vinegar to
four of water, or one part of acetic acid to about fifteen of water,
and apply with a fine nozzle direct to the roof. If any drips down
it may be used over again since it will have been applied too copi-
ously. Some of the white lead will have been dissolved in this
drip and it will not be quite so effective a second time. After ap-
plication, the usual rubbing may commence, when it will be found
that the shade will come off much more easily. The reason for
this is that the white lead is changed from the basic carbonate to
the acetate, which is very soluble in water. Water coupled with
friction will, therefore, easily remove it."

CHAPTER IX.

TYING UP OR SUPPORTING CARNATION FLOWERING STEMS-
DISBUDDING CARNATIONS -A CONSERVATION OF VITAL
FORCES— A MATTER OF MARKET.

THERE have been as many schemes for supporting earn a-
tion canes as patents on washing machines, but few of
which have escaped the observation of the writer. The
future may evolve a more simple and convenient mode than that
of Mr. Dorner's; but in convenience, neatness, and inexpensive-
ness it has, as yet, not been excelled. This or some other sup-
port should be given carnation plants as soon as convenient after
they are benched. In the plan above alluded to, the plants are put
in the rows alternately, so that they run in diagonal lines across
the bed. At the ends of the beds and at intervals of about twelve
feet along them a light wooden bar, supported at either side by an
upright, crosses the bed about ten inches from the surface. This
supports a galvanized wire along each row of plants, the wire be-
ing fastened at the ends, while the cross-bars along the bed receive
each wire in a little nick which keeps it from slipping. The tying
material is cotton string, which is worked across the bed from one
side to the other diagonally, making it appear in a series of tri-
angles. The tying is very quickly done by two men, one at either
side passing the string across; it is given a loop over at each wire.
The great convenience of this system is that while supporting the
plant it is not crowded up together, and the string is not in the
way when picking flowers. For very tall growers, a second wire
may be added above the first.

A crown flower issues from the top of the main stem of a
carnation plant. A terminal bud or flower is the leading one from
a side shoot of the stem.

Some varieties of carnations are given to blow crown flowers;
such kinds need but little attention in the matter of disbudding;

A MATTER OF MARKET. 57

other kinds start profusely axillary stems. The plant is incapable
of maturing all the buds that are thus projected into salable flowers.
Disbudding is merely a species of pruning, and should be done as
soon as the lateral buds begin to develop on the cane. It diverts
the flow of the plant's blood from many buds into one or a few,
thus increasing the size of the flower, the substance of its petals,
the length of the stem, its value in the market, conserves the vigor
of the plant, and builds up the florist's reputation for good stock.

The last analysis of a carnation flower with a florist is "How
much money is there in it ?" He deals in poetry, but his trade is
prose. The question with him is whether he can get as much
money for one high grade carnation bloom as he can for half a
dozen poor ones. Disbudding is a matter of market.

There are always three grades of carnation flowers, poor ones
that no one wants, good ones that everybody buys, fine ones that
everybody adores and money purchases.

There is not as much waste by the process of disbudding as
one might superficially suppose. It wonderfully preserves the vigor
of the plant, its capacity for a renewal of stems and flowers, and
its vitality is retained to repeat florescence. All vegetable physi-
ologists are aware that the only aim of a plant's life is to perpetuate
itself in vital seeds. When this is done its life-mission is ended,
the culmination of its vital forces is reached in elaborating pro-
tein compounds and crystalizing them into seeds as nutriment for
its embryonic progeny. If a carnation plant is early disbudded, this
crucial period of its life is partially relieved and its energies
prolonged An initial bud, with all its parts, is yet but imper-
fectly modified leaves. Experiments have been made as to the
probable extent to which the remaining buds and their unfolded
petals are benefitted on a healthy plant by judicious disbudding.
It will increase the diameter of the crown flower one inch and
the terminal flower half an inch.

CHAPTER X.

PROFESSOR ARTHUR ON PLANT RESPIRATION— SURFACE VIEW
OF EPIDERMAL CELLS OF A CARNATION LEAF— SEC-
TIONAL CUTS THROUGH A CARNATION STOMA—
PHYSIOLOGICAL DEMANDS OF CARNATIONS
FOR FRESH AIR.

DEFICIENT ventilation has been, and still is one of the
great errors in the successful cultivation of carnations.
If there is one thing the anatomical organs and a knowl-
edge of their functions teach, it is an unlimited amount of fresh
air, a comparatively dry atmosphere for the foliage, and a mod-
erate supply of moisture for their roots. This is the implication
of the plant's structure. Its physiology, and forty years of costly
experimental processes have proven these postulates true. Some
species of plants rely exclusively for their support on elements
drawn from the atmosphere. The ancestral forms of Dianthus
life were, and are, habitats of high, dry and cool latitudes. If he-
redity is a factor in vegetable life, the foliage of their progeny
must love air and their roots have an aversion to an excess of
water.

They are most florescent and healthy in the fall and spring
months, when the ventilators are open, and fresh air is freest.
Cool air is not necessarily pure air, but it is commonly accepted
as an equivalent for ventilation Ventilators should be raised in
carnation houses and fire started when the mercury falls below
forty degrees outside.

I am pleased to accept Professor Arthur's views on the anat-
omy and respiratory functions of carnation plants, but entirely dis-
sent from his conclusion that their nature warrants a system of
sub- watering as being in harmony with any known law governing
this plant's nature.

THE DEMAND FOB FBESH AIB. 59

The breathing pores number thousands on every carnation
leaf, and exist on both the upper and lower surface of the leaf,
which is not the case in many species of plants. They are sim-
ply mouths or nostrils leading down between the cells which
make the tissue of the leaf. Through these openings is exhaled
oxygen gas, and effete poisonous elements in the form of vapor;
and they inhale carbonic acid gas, and healthy tissue-building
material in atmospherical form.

FIG. 1. Surface view of a carnation leaf under very strong magnification, show-
ing the epidermal cells and the round openings leading to the stomata.

A man requires 250 cubic feet of air every hour to supply
his system with the needed amount of oxygen, and his blood is
distributed over 1400 superficial feet of cell surface in the lungs
to absorb from the air inhaled this essential life-giving element.

The vegetable blood of a carnation plant is distributed over
an area of cell walls in its foliage a thousand times geater than
its leaf surface, for precisely the same purpose as in an animal but
with reversed function. The plant expires oxygen and inhales
carbonic oxide. An almost .air-tight glass house holding thous-
ands of breathing carnation plants would be speedily exhausted
of its supply of plant air and they would soon suffocate in their
own poisonous exhalations.

This simple automatic arrangement of nature is open only to
the entrance and exit of vaporal forms. Leaves do not absorb

60 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

water — darkness and water close the valves of these breathing
plant's mouths. Careful experiments have determined that one
superficial foot of leaf surface exhales one and one-fourth ounces
of vapor in twelve hours of sunshine. Light lifts the valves and
opens the throttles for plant respiration. Darkness, rain and dew
closes the pores and maintains merely and equilibrium of plant

FIG. 2.— Section taken at right angles to the surface through a stoma. The guard-
cells, forming the automatic valves, are shown touching each other, so that the stoma
passage is closed. The epidermal celis are empty, but the outer wall is excessively thick.

circulation. This is an explanation for not spraying carnations
in cloudy weather, in the absence of the drying rays of the sun.
Wilted plants are fresh and full of sap after a night of dark-
ness and dew, because they have absorbed fluids by the root, and
exhaled none in the form of vapor by the leaves. They have
been breathless, in a coma, wailing for the sorcery of sun light to
stir the magic forces of life into active circulation.

CHAPTER XI.

OVERHEAD WATERING— SURFACE WATERING -SUB-WATERING
- CUT OF A CROSS SECTION OF A SUB- WATERING BENCH
—RELATIVE COST OF BENCHES AND BEDS—
OPINIONS OF THEIR MERITS.

THE amount of moisture a plant requires for its health and
development is in ratio to the area of its leaf surface.
Nature never makes a mistake in proportioning organs or
in the assignment of their functions. It is the function of roots to
absorb water from the earth and for the leaves to exhale it in the
form of vapor. Leaf surface is an unfailing indication of the
volume of liquid vegetable blood required in a plant's circulation.
The spacious leafed banana growing in the humid section of the
tropics, and the leafless cacti growing in an arid region, are indices
ot the demands of their structure for moisture, and of the capac-
ity of their roots to absorb it.

Some plants demand more water than others. Water is the
means by which floats to every part of the plant the dissolved nu-
triments to build the skeleton of its structure. An adult sun-
flower evaporates a quart of water daily; a large oak, one hundred
and fifty gallons, or three barrels. These plants have unobstructed
capillary tubes, an arterial and veinous system through which their
watery blood flows in volume. It is estimated that twenty- five
pounds of water must circulate through the system of a plant to
deposit one ounce of dry matter.

A carnation is neither a sunflower nor an oak. Its circulatory
system differs from them. It has no heart to pump the blood
through its system, a vis f route and vis tergo, is but indifferently
developed, and the volume of fluid in its system is small, being
one-half less than in aquatic plants. The structure of a carnation
like many other plants is composed of cells. The stems and root

62 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

were primarily vascular, and converted into hard structures by
collapsed cells.

The circulation of a carnation is effected by the transfusion
of its blood through the permeable cell walls of its structure, by
exosmosis and endosmosis. The process is slow and forbids the
assumption that its nature can dispose of much water, and asserts
with its small area of leaf surface, that it is on the dry side of the
average class of nature's plants.

Forty years of experimental carnation growing in this country
has reached one unquestioned conclusion. It is, moderate moisture
fot its roots and fairly dry atmosphere for its foliage.

OVER-HEAD WATERING.

The foliage of healthy carnations is covered with a thin
waxy substance called bloom. It varies in color from a steel
blue to a sea green. It seems to be a shield against moisture,
it is impervious and sheds water like the oiled feathers on a duck's
back. The purpose of this wet resisting bloom is not definitely
understood, but it can safely be taken as a warning against an
excess of foliage moisture.

The most progressive and successful growers never over-head
water their carnations after the flush given them on their removal
to the benches from the field. The physiological reason is not very
obvious unless it resides in the fact that wet closes the automatic
valves of the plant's exhaling organs, and for a time arrests the
breathing functions of the foliage, and thereby for the nonce
gives spores and germs less vital resistance to their depredations.
It is a known fact that leaf moisture favors the vegetation of
rust spores. When it is deemed necessary to spray carnations with
liquid germicides, or insecticides, or with water for other reasons, it
should be done on a clear sunny morning, that the foliage may
dry as soon as possible.

SURFACE WATERING.

The system of surface watering most approved is between
the rows of the benched carnations keeping the nozzle of the
hose close to the ground and with a force of water that will splash

SUB-WATERING.

63

the foliage as little as possible. This can best be accomplished
by attaching the hose to three feet or less of half-inch metallic
pipe. A system that has several reasons to commend, is to
make a moderate furrow midway between each carnation row
across the bench, and let the water from the hose flow into this
furrow. It saves the lower foliage of the plants, which is most
likely to be damaged from becoming wet, and takes it the
longest to dry.

SUB-WATERING.

Professor Arthur is entitled to the initial credit, if any is due,
for the system of sub-watering carnations. As it is difficult to
briefly convey an understanding of this mode of supplying water
to carnation roots, I give a figure of Arthur's plan.

• J=?H££:£f.v;^^r,^£^^ a

FIG. 3.— Cross-section of bench for sub-watering: a glass tube forming a water gauge;
b vertical tube for conveying water to the pan; c layer of brick standing on the zinc-
lined bottom, and supporting the soil above. (From Ind. Exper. Sta., Bui. No. 66.)

The bench is fitted with a water-tight lining of zinc, on the
bottom of which are placed, on their edges, moderately soft brick
with their lower angles chipped off to permit freer movement of
the water between them. On the top of these bricks is thrown
the bench soil in which the usual methods are followed.

It is known that carnation plants of the L,a Puritie type are
almost an immune against a water famine, and no plants so

64 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

quickly recover from a drouth, and with as little damage to them-
selves as carnations.

The structure of the carnation plant does not teach any ne-
cessity for a constant supply of water at its roots, while that of
celery does. Benched carnations often suffer from great dryness
at the bottom of the bench, but no philosophy can urge an unnatural
system of watering to supply the negligence of a grower. There
is much care and labor in keeping a proper moisture in a green-
house through the summer months. By the rapid conversion of
moisture into vapor by the summer sun there is an immense
volume of latent caloric absorbed; and for growing carnations un-
der glass in summer, Prof. Arthur's system may be a species of
automatic refrigeration of the local atmosphere and surface tem-
perature in which the plants may flourish, but the method is total-
ly untenable on the grounds urged by the Professor, viz: "that the
nature of carnations require a constant supply of water at the
roots."

The proposed sub-watering system created some sensation
among growers. I have been diligent in obtaining results from
those who have attempted the plan, Mr. Dale says he can see no
difference in carnations under the two methods. There is as
much danger in over watering by the new system as there is in
under watering by the old method.

Dorner & Son say they cannot observe much difference be
tween the super and sub system of watering carnations: some
varieties it benefits, to others it is detrimental.

J. H. Dillon has compared experimentally the comparative
cost of a sub-watering bed and the ordinary wooden bench, and
finds the latter, four and one-half feet wide, costs fifteen cents a
lineal foot, and a sub-watering bed, thirty cents a lineal foot.
The sub-watering system is yet in its experimental stage and it
is a question if it ever gets beyond it.

CHAPTER XII.

TOPPING CARNATIONS -SHIPPING FLOWERS AND ROOTED
CUTTINGS— ENIGMA OF FLOWERS "GOING TO SLEEP"—
OPINIONS OF CARNATION SPECIALISTS-
FUNCTION OF PETALS.

CARNATION plants in pots, flats, or fields, should not be
permitted to mature flower buds. Most plants that at-
tempt such premature maturity are taken from near the
top of the mother plant. All the vital energies of a plant are di-
verted to the processes of perfecting seed, and, incidentally, flowers.
When they bud in a small cutting, those life forces must be ar-
rested and diverted to vegetative growth, and not to reproductive
efforts.

In topping carnations, some cut with a knife, others pinch
off the tender top, others pull out the center stems. The
better mode is to seize the stem with the thumb and finger be-
low the rupture to counter-poise the pulling force. The time to
top carnations grown for winter blooming is on the appearance of
a flower bud. Some growers remove all incipient buds from
mature plants when they are lifted in the field for the benches,
claiming with reason, that good flowers can not be obtained from
buds started in the field and matured in the house.

CUTTING AND KEEPING CARNATION BLOOMS.

Carnation flowers must open full on the stems and the petals
reach a proper stage of maturity, to be lasting when picked,
"going to sleep," or "early wilting" of carnation flowers de-
pends on the hygrometric condition of the plant that produces
them, and a corresponding condition of the petals of its flowers.
A proper flower from a non-dropsical plant may maintain a pre-
sentable condition for three weeks.

66 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Carnation flowers should be cut in the morning and always
before fumigation; the stems immersed in small vases filled with
water and kept in a cool dry room until ready for market. They
should be packed in nice clean boxes, not more than 250 in a
mass, and dispatched to reach the commission man early in the
day.

An experienced dealer in cut carnation flowers writes: "The
temperature in which carnation flowers should be kept after they
are cut is 50 degrees, in a dry, clean, well ventilated room. A
refrigerator, cooled with ice, is the worst place possible to pre-
serve carnation blooms. The atmosphere is damp and damaging,
when they are taken out, their moisture rapidly evaporates and the
flowers 'go to sleep. ' '

Carnation flowers may be cut too soon, or too late, to keep
well. If they are cut after they are fertilized or before their
structural cells are developed, they quickly wither. A concensus
of the most intelligent opinions and experiences on this import-
ant point is, if cut sometime before maturity and allowed to stay
in water for several hours before shipping, they will invariably
improve and appear to better advantage after the dealer receives
them. Keep carnations and all flowers in a large, airy cellar,
avoid putting them in an ice-box, and have at all times a good
circulation of fresh air; and, above all things, avoid a close,
stuffy atmosphere.

Regarding the temperature for keeping carnation flowers
after they are cut, experience has been that an average of 50
degrees is the best, in conjunction with a dry, healthy atmosphere,
without drafts or currents of air directly on the flowers. A
moderate amount of light without direct rays of the sun is essen-
tial to their good keeping qualities. A thing to avoid, more
especially, is ice in any form. Gas, either illuminating, or from a
furnace, and sulphuric from heating pipes, are all poisonous to
carnation blooms.

ROOTED CUTTINGS — PACKING AND SHIPPING.

Few have a conception of the enormous traffic there is in
rooted carnation cuttings. The desire of every grower to secure

BOOTED CUTTINGS. 67

the best kinds, and those adapted to his soil and local conditions,
makes a continual demand for new varieties, and an exchange of
standard sorts. Cuttings should be carefully lifted from the sand,
flats, or turned out of pots, and massed in bunches of 25 each,
the roots wrapped in moist moss, truthfully labeled, packed in a
clean box corresponding in size to the number of plants to be
shipped. Line the box with felt paper, in both warm and cold
weather, tack the customary label for plants or cut flowers bear-
ing the traditionary legend of ''Plants, keep from heat or cold,"
and start them on their mission.

Healthy plants are always implied. Send such, true to name,
or none. After long and multifarious dealings with the floral pro-
fession, I assert that there is no class of business men more honest
and honorable than florists, but it would be miraculous if an oc-
cassional mercenary degenerate was not found among them. Out
of 15 or 20 orders for new kinds of carnations sent from near home
this spring, one was received consumed with rust. It is hard to
conceive of more contemptible moral obliquity. On the affidavits of
two disinterested florists to the fact, and publication in trade
journals, the offender should be quarantined from business rela-
tions with fair dealing men, until his nature has been reconiposed
by some reformatory machine, none of which has yet been pat-
ented.

Scientists have ceased their search for life, and they confine
themselves to studying its normal and abnormal phenomena. In
all the practical phases of the carnation's life there is not one more
profoundly secret, and vaguely nebulous, than the life-related
causes of the transient and keeping qualities of its flowers. Their
duration ranges from a few hours to 30 days, when environed
with condition, not noticably different.

Messrs. Dorner and Crabb think the substance of petals and
their duration are co-related; Mr. Witterstaetter adds proper hand-
ling as a panacea; Mr. Kasting says their keeping depends on the
time the flowers are picked after they are blown; Mr. Bauer says
a flower on a stem cut from the plant with a sharp knife will last
twice as long as one pinched or broken off; Mr. May says he

68 AMERICAN CARNATION

never saw a carnation flower fumigated the night before it was
cut, ship or keep well; Rob't Craig thinks "substance" of the
petal a hard thing to define, and flowers that possessed the alleged
"substance" to his knowledge have quickly "gone to sleep;" Mr.
Hill thought some ingredient is lacking in the soil when flowers
fade quickly; Mr. Kasting says he has had much experience in
handling carnation flowers and if they are cut at the proper time,
and kept in the proper temperature, there would be no trouble
about them "going to sleep;" Mr. Herr thought there was as much
art in picking carnation flowers as there was in growing them;
Mr. Baur objects to the word "picking" instead of cutting; Mr.
Murchie thinks pollenization is a large factor in the early wilt-
ing of carnation's blooms; Mr. Crabb thinks sulphur and other
chemicals put in bundles of tobacco stems to preserve them, when
burned in the house, had much to do with the flowers withering;
Mr. Ward was disposed to blame the express companies; Mr.
Fisher said the "Adams Express Co. controlled New England
territory."

The above is an abridged interchanging of views that took
place between these eminent carnation savants at Buffalo. There
is a sub-vestige of philosophy in all the suggestions excepting the
one of "Adams Express Co. controlling the territory .of New
England."

There are no caprices in nature. Things are called versa-
tile and erratic from ignorance of the line of causes that produced
them. There may be a conspiracy of causes in producing a
marvel, as in the freakish and fantastical duration of carnation
blooms. A flower grown in great heat and moisture would not
keep long in reversed conditions. Flowers subject to tobacco fumes
long, and strong enough to strangle to death Greenflies, must
throw the life of a supersensitive and feebly organized petal into
avticulo mortis. After feritilization, the petals of flowers having
served their purpose, immediately wither, and there is a period in
a flower's life between a plastic petal and its decay in which its
texture is the strongest to endure. A factor controlling the most
causes of a carnation flower's duration is ignorance ot the phys-

CARNATION ''PROSPERITY." __ 69

iological fact, that the petals exhale carbonic gas, but not oxygen.
Their functions are the reverse of the foliage of the plant. Vital
chemistry says, petals inhale and exhale the same elements from
the atmosphere as the human lungs.

It is not a strained inference, that a healthful atmosphere for
the lungs of a man would be proper for both cut and uncut car-
nation blooms; in fact experience demonstrates it to be so.

PROSPERITY.

This carnation originated with Dailledouze Bros., Flatbush, N. Y., and
was disseminated in 1901.

CHAPTER XIII.

IS PRODUCTIVENESS OF BLOOM DIMINISHING ?— IS QUANTITY

BEING SACRIFICED FOR QUALITY ?— BLOOMS PER PLANT

-SOME RECORDS QUOTED -COMPARISONS.

THE data to reach a conclusion as to the diminishing product-
iveness of bloom on later introduced varieties of carna-
tions is such as to justify only a very general conclusion.
The number of flowers a carnation plant will produce through the
season is an interesting enquiry, as well as the basis of a computa-
tion of profit or loss in its cultivation.

This is information requires time and labor to secure. Some
growers have kept tab on the number of flowers they have ob-
tained for a month or two, or part of the season, which is not
available data for a generalization. In 1890, Mr. R. W. Winter-
staetter, a reliable and painstaking carnation grower, gave exact
figures of the number of flowers and cuttings taken from four
standard varieties of carnations grown at that date by him, reach-
ing from October 17 to June 27, embracing their entire blooming
life, which was published in an earlier edition of AMERICAN CAR-
NATION CULTURE.

No. Plants.

Kind.

Flowers Cut.

Cuttings.

Average.

550

William Swayne.

15447

2300

28

332

Silver Spray.

8456

22OO

26

550

Buttercup.

11909

4300

22

600

Tidal Wave.

12897

3150

21

2032

48709

II950

22

The general average of flowers per plant is twenty four. It is
conservatively estimated that every cutting sacrifices one flower;
if it was so counted, it would raise the general average of flowers
for each plant to thirty.

BLOOMS PER PLANT.

71

The Chicago Carnation Co. , as published in a trade journal
recently, has carefully counted the flowers cut from eight standard
varieties of carnations grown in 1900, ten years later than Mr.
Winterstaetter's figures. The company makes no mention of any
cuttings being taken. The report runs from October 8 to June i,
embracing the whole flowering season of the plants, of the follow-
ing varieties:

No Plants.

Name of Plants.

No. of Flowers.

Average.

3439

Victor.

77193

21

3355

Gold Nugget.

22902

13

1575

Flora Hill.

27875

17

1859

Evelina.

44512

31

1020

Mrs. Joost.

3876

31

2949

Armazindy.

49000

17

843

Argyle.

12000

14

3«76

Jubilee.

48000

13

18916

8 Varieties.

285358

15

The general average of flowers per plant is fifteen. The
The number of cuttings taken from these plants, if any, should be
added to the number of flowers, which would increase the percent-
age per plant. The Chicago Carnation Co.'s flowers, doubtless,
were of a higher grade and were grown on advanced carnation
plants, and commanded a higher price than those harvested by
Mr. Winterstaetter, ten years previous. The tables enforce the
fact that the marvelous florescence of the earlier type ot carnations
is rapidly vanishing before the tireless strain for a better quality.

That quality of carnation bloom is sacrificing quantity is
strikingly emphasized in ten years' time. In the third edition of
AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE, R. W.Witterstaetter accurately
counted the flower crop for the season on Silver Spray, William
Swayne and Tidal Wave, three standard varieties, and they
averaged respectively, thirty-one blooms and five cuttings per
plant, twenty-six blooms and seven cuttings per plant, twenty-
seven blooms and seven cuttings per plant.

72 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

B. T. Lombard has said he cut from Hector, flowers and cut-
tings, equaling eighty-four flowers per plant.

W. R. Shelmire has said his flowers and cuttings equaled
fifty-four flowers per plant.

W. Nicholson estimated eighty-three flowers per plant.

J. C. Hoag, eighty blooms per plant.

Joseph Renard, fifty- five flowers per plant for half the season.

H. E. Chitty, fifty-six flowers per plant, not estimating cut-
tings.

DeWitt Bros., five flowers per plant for one month.

B. W. Orr said: "I have just counted (Feb. 10, 1890) seventy-
five buds and blooms on one plant of Tenderess. Last winter, one
plant had on it at the same time, one hundred and twenty-five
buds and blooms."

K. Swayne said: "I cut one hundred and ninety flowers from
Aurora during the season of 1890-91."

The evidences may not be very pointed and conclusive that
the florescence of carnations is diminishing, the strong inference
of the fact rests in the known natural law that the increased size
of flower will decrease the number of blooms.

The size of carnation flowers has been increased in diam-
eter in the last twenty-five years from two to four inches.

CHAPTER XIV.

CLASSIFICATION OF CARNATIONS BASED ON COLORS -RATIO
OF CARNATION COLORS -EUROPEAN NOMENCLATURE-
COLORS A CHEMICO-VITAL PROCESS SENTIMENT
OF COLORS.

ASIDE from the prismatic colors, violet, indigo, blue, green,
orange, yellow and red, and a few common well under-
stood shades, all is chaos in the science of chromatics.
The method of conveying information of a color to a second per-
son is to compare it with the color of some object with which he
is supposed to be familiar. There are seventy -five different sub-
stances enumerated to illustrate as many shades of yellow, as
orange, saffron, chrome, lemon, etc. Carnation means flesh colored.
The color of the flower when it was thus christened was doubt-
less pink and suggested the name; the compass of the term ranges
in Caucasian flesh from a pallid white to deep crimson. The term
by usage has become generic, and implies flower, plant and species.

The seven primary colors are resolvable into yellow, red and
blue. All other shades arise from the interminal ratio of admixing
these colors. Black is the negation of all color, and white a com-
pound of all the primary colors.

Twenty-six letters form more than two hundred and fifty
thousand words; seven primary perfumes all the fragrances of earth;
red, yellow and blue are the basic pigments of the planet, the color
mordants of the world; with these Nature decorates the hills and
dales of earth, springs a seven-hued arch across the sky, halos
dawns with the tints of morning, and sunsets with the dyes of ap-
proaching night.

The classification of carnations founded on the color of their
flowers was given to the public by the author in the first edition
of AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE, and has been accepted by

74 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

florists and the public as concise and descriptive. The system ar-
ranged the colors of all carnation flowers into seven classes, which
are white, scarlet, crimson, pink, yellow, yellow- variegated and
white-variegated. Nineteen-twentieths of all the leading colors
pass naturally under these seven classified heads.

A shaded carnation is one of these leading colors toned or
modified by another.

A flaked carnation has irregular blotches of a different color
impressed on one of the above colors.

A penciled carnation has straight parallel lines of different
lengths impressed on the petals bearing a predominance of- one of
the above colors.

I have never seen a carnation flower with diversified colors
but they were impressed upon a ground color in which white or
yellow largely predominated, these being the base on which all
variegations are painted.

Buttercup is a typical yellow- variegated carnation. It has
vermilion pencilings on a yellow ground. Chester Pride is a fine
sample of a white-variegated carnation with carmine stripes on a
pure white ground. Pink, scarlet and crimson are intensified
shades of the same color. The white class ranges from absolute
purity to a tinge of cream or pink. The yellow from deep orange
to light lemon. The pink from a cherry red to the slightest blush.

The demand for white carnation flowers equals those of all
other colors. In hardy pinks, the variegations are always across
the petals; in carnations they are parallel with the axis. The yel-
low colored carnations are the slowest to develop into a satisfactory
class. They are more capricious, or susceptible to uncongenial
conditions than the other colors. It can be said there is not a
satisfactory yellow in cultivation. Many growers use a yellow-
variegated kind as a substitute for a pure yellow.

The American system of color nomenclature is preferable to
the one in Europe, which divides the strains of colors intobizzars,
selfs, fancies and flakes. V

The cause of diversity of colors in carnation flowers can
never be scientifically demonstrated. Selection of color in parents,

EUROPEAN NOMENCLATURE. 75

in cross-fertilization revolts' at man's knowledge of hereditary
forces. Atavism is a scientific fact. Parentalism leaps genera-
tions, and then renews its features with enforced effect. There are
lapses into barbarism in men wearing stripes in penitentiaries
whose ancestors wore the solid colors of civilization.

Some delicate and interesting experiments have recently
been made in Germany to determine what color in flowers is.
It is found to be a substance called Flowerblue, mixed with a red
colored element, and pervades the juices of the plant. When the
Flower blue is treated with chemicals, various hues are artifi-
cially obtained. Copperas turns white hydrangias to pink, roses
to a lilac hue; and muriatic acid turns pink carnations to a cop-
per red. The color of the yellow carnation is found to depend
on yellow iridescent granules inside of transparent cell walls, and
differs in this respect from the causes of colors in other flowers.

To describe a carnation as merely variegated, as is often done,
leaves the mind in mental darkness as to colors ; while to use the
pre-nomen white- variegated, or j^//0w-variegated indicates the
dominating shade and conveys some intelligence.

Repeated experiments have been made to test the compara-
tive keeping qualities of the seven classified carnation colors.
They have resulted in awarding the palm, for greatest durability,
to the crimson color.

If the German physiologists are right, the yellow colored car-
nation, with its different habits, marked eccentricities, and means
of colorization, it is entitled to rank as a distinct species. It is not
colored by the alchemy of its juices, but mechanically, like a dia-
mond that steals a sunbeam and hides it in its heart to sparkle for-
ever from countless facits, the yellow carnation imprisons an iri-
descent atom in translucent cells to reflect its golden hues.

It can be asserted with scientific assurance, that the coloring
of the petals of flowers is a chemico-vital process, in which Nature
outrivals Raphael in toning dazzling frescoes. No use is known
for petals but that of a gonfalon to guide insects to a bacchanal of
nectar. They are painted with pencils made of sunbeams, and pig-
ments mixed with life. The petals are soft, watery and delicately

76 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

organized, they exhale carbonic acid gas but not oxygen, they
circulate a sap touched with delicate chemicals that by the thauma-
turgy of sunlight turns to charming colors, shades, tints and tones.

The green color of the foliage of carnation plants depends up-
on minute green globules called chlorophyl which float in the sap of
the epidermal cells. They also rely on sunlight for their emerald
hue. A plant grown in the dark is without a green color. Shades
of carnation foliage differ in varieties from a steel blue to a glau-
cous green.

The experimental station of the state of Connecticut has an-
alyzed the petals of carnations and find they are composed of three
elements.

Nitrogen 33 per cent.

Phosphorus 8 " "

Potash 59 " "

This fact goes far to show the food on which petals feed.

Carnation is a word of Latin derivation. It comes from caro,
meaning flesh, or flesh colored. It was first used to indicated the
color of the carnation flower, but has become so generalized as to
imply a genus of the Dianthus tribe of plants, varieties, and
any color flower the plant may bear. I have no historical
data to indicate the time this term was applied to any branch
of the Dianthus genus. It is now used to distinguish the
perpetual flowering kind from the single crop blooming pinks.
Out of thirty-six varieties of the remontant type introduced this
year (1901), the pink color predominates over any other color.
Out of nearly one thousand named carnations that have originated,
and been imported into the carnation zone of America during
the last forty years, so far as history has preserved, their colors
have been as follows :

Pink of different shades, 25 per cent.

Scarlet " 18

Crimson " " 15

White " 14

Yellow-variegated shades, 15

White " ii

Yellow " " 2

COLORS A CHEMICO-VITAL PROCESS. 77

This does not include twelve varieties of carnations with a
greater or less purple tinge to their petals.

The purple class consists of:

Roy des Violet, Flushing, Lady Rachel,

Pupura, Fleta Fay Foster, Bonibell,

Purple Crown, Purple Beauty, Villisco,

Kazer William, Purple King, Lowell.

None of these have taken positions of much importance.
Four of the twelve were imported.

There has been originated and imported twenty-five solid yel-
low carnations, running a scale of shades from a pale lemon to
deep orange.

Yellow Queen, Field of Gold,

Yellow Jack, Cora Collins.

Star Light, Cloth of Gold,

Old Gold, Eldorado,

M. E. Gobet, J. B. Jackner,

Henrietta Sargent, Pride of Penhurst,

Germania, Sunshine,

Golden Triumph, Venus,

Golden Gate, W. J. Burk,

Gold Coin, Andalusia,

Gold Nugget, Ben Halliday,

Eliza Furgurson, Bouton de' Or.

At least eight of this list were imported. This class of colored
carnations is erratic in its habits and does not reach the average
in productiveness of bloom, but when it sorts with other colors
the product is often robust plants, good bloomers with magnifi-
cent yellow-variegated corollas of the Buttercup and Chester Pride
types. Carnation plants, as a rule, are the most florescent that
blow solid pink, scarlet and white colored flowers. Pure yellow
flowers are borne on plants so shy and capricious that many do
not attempt their cultivation, but use some yellow-variegated kind
to supply this color. The color hues of carnation flowers are

78 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

modified by natural and artificial light. The Marquis is more
impressive by sunlight, and Croker, by gas light.

A learned professor of an experimental station exploiting
plant wisdom formally stated in an address that the first car-
nations were "blue" a most irrational inference in the light of
their history. Past generations may not have been as wise as
plant managers of modern "stations," but they never before have
been charged with the solecism of calling black white, or uniform-
ly naming a pink object to illustrate a blue color.

A. Linton counted 172 buds and blooms on a California variety
named Majesty and thinks a good specimen would yield 500 flow-
ers during a season. A typical plant of such carnations during its
blooming period might yield 25,000 petals; more than ten square
feet of petaline canvass,every flower leaf textured with tri-strands of
nitrogen, phosphorus and potash, twirled in the spinneret of nature
wove to fabric in life's subtle loom, moistened with mordants in a
calyx-crypt, and juggled into perfumes and witching colors by the
magic wand of simple sunbeams.

Nature's sweetest lyric is syrnboled by a flower. It is a meta-
phor in her loftiest poetry, and emblems the divinest emotions that
ever thrilled the heart of man. Mythology says carnations sprang
from the blood of rival lovers, and typify disdain, but modern
romance makes them hieroglyphs of warmer and more generous
affections.

Pink carnations indicates Purity,

White " " Fascination.

Scarlet " " Dignity.

Crimson " " Ardent love.

Yellow " " Refusal.

White- var. ' ' ' ' Friendship.

Yellow " " " False.

Red " " Acceptance.

CARNATION "MRS. E. A. NELSON."

MRS. E. A. NELSON.

This carnation originated in Indianapolis, Ind., with E. A. Nelson. It
has been tested for four years, which places it beyond the mutation which
often waits on new carnations.

The plant has a strong constitution, is a vigorous grower, and produces
its flowers early, profusely and continuously, on strong stems from two to
two and one-half feet long. The flower is a beautiful iridescent pink, from
3^ to 4 inches in diameter, and possesses an absolutely unbursting calyx,
and has remarkable keeping qualities. It has won records of 91 >£ to
94 points from critical judges and has been the admiration at every carna-
tion exhibition where shown. It will be on the market in the spring of
1902. The sales represented by E. A. Nelson, Indianapolis, Ind., and S. S.
Skidelsky, Philadelphia, Pa.

CHAPTER XV.

GROWING CARNATIONS UNDER GLASS THROUGH THE SUMMER
—WHY HIGHER GRADE FLOWERS— INCREASED COST
—EARLIER MARKET— ADVANCED PRICE
—THE COMPENSATION.

THE system of growing carnations under glass through the
summer season is yet in its experimental stage, but is
attracting the attention of growers near affluent markets,
where quality commands its price. Its advocates claim an even
cut of bloom, of higher grade through the season, with better
stems and less disease. They admit the system requires more
labor, expense, and closer attention, which is offset by an increased
price for the higher quality of goods. Some indoor growers turn
their plants out of two and one-half inch pots the first of April
directly in the soil on the benches in the house where they are to
remain during their blooming season. They will commence
flowering about the first of October, thus giving a supply at a
period when carnation flowers are scarce.

Mr. Hartshorn grows his carnations outdoors for eight or ten
weeks and then removes them to the house bench — a compromise
between the two methods.

Glass affords the plants a more uniform temperature and
light. Light intensifies the colors of flowers, as is observable in all
countries with cloudless skys. Dr. Beneck, an eminent vegetable
physiologist of Europe, says : "L,ight tends to develope the repro-
ductive over the vegetative elements of plants." This implies its
floral features. Love is the ardor of an animal's desires; a flower
is the heat of a plant's passion; the perpetuation of its species is its
only object; to fructify and live again in vital seeds is a plant's
final aim and destiny. Flowers are not aureoled with beauty for
men to admire. They don their crowns of gaudy colors and fling
their perfume on the ambient airs to cajole the bees to Adonean

CARNATIONS UNDER GLASS. 81

feasts. When a plant feels the tread of pollen-shod feet'of insects
on the dias of its petals, it swoons to coma with the delirium of
rounded life; its end is attained, its destiny fulfilled.

It is not strange that carnations should exploit their best
floral efforts for the only object for which they live under the elec-
tric stimulus of intensified sunbeams. House for growing car-
nations through the summer under glass should be contrived for
the greatest possible ventilation. Light is the conjuror of better
blooms, not heat. The side and central ventilators should remain
constantly open until the outside temperature falls below 40 de-
grees at night. Plants for indoor culture are struck about the
same time as for the common system of culture and carried thrift-
ily forward in pots, until about the first of July, in cold frames,
when they are transplanted on the beds, or benches in the house.
All growers now bench their field carnations from one to two
months earlier than they did ten years ago.

Growing carnations under glass is a matter of market. If a
grower can realize more money for a less number of high grade
flowers than he can for a greater number of moderate quality, he
should experiment with the glass system. There are some vari-
eties of the carnation family that are better adapted for growing
under glass than others, but the practice has not yet developed
the catalogue. Jubilee, Triumph, J. Dean are mentioned, while
Buttercup is specifically regarded as undergoing a palingenesia
by the thaumaturgy of summer glass.

CHAPTER XVI.

SUNLIGHT AND VENTILATION PRIME FACTORS IN CONSTRUCT-
ING CARNATION HOUSES -BUTTING GLASS -HEAT-
ING—RADIATING SURFACE REQUIRED FOR
GLASS SURFACE.

IT is not designed to give details relative to glass houses for forc-
ing carnations, but to allude to a few of the main features that
should be in houses to supply the most imperative demands of
carnation plants. In the architectural construction, heating and
ventilating plant houses there are firms with great experience and
large capital who have spent their lives in perfecting these several
departments. They must be deferred to.

There are but three primary systems for heating green-
houses, the brick flue, hot water, and steam methods. They are
evolutionary. For a small glass surface, say two or three, eleven
by forty-foot houses, with the absolute certainty that there would
never be a demand for an increased capacity, I would use the old
brick flue as the cheapest and the best primary school in floricul-
ture, and equal to the means of some and the ambition of others.
Floriculture is centralizing and capitalizing and in its larger centers
of trade where capacity and facilities are great for growing carna-
tion flowers for market there would be a hazy hope of success from
the flue system of heating.

For a larger area of glass, hot water can be adopted with suc-
cessful results. With a large extent of glass and a corresponding
value of stock to be cared for, a stoker and night watchman are im-
peratively demanded. The steam system comes to the front as the
ultimate in greenhouse heating until Thermo-Electricity is suc-
cessfully installed. The relative cost of hot water and steam for
any definite quantity of glass can be more certainly obtained by

MODERN GREENHOUSES.

Say
' .2 o

83°

a"

o

R 8

I M

a; '2 ^

2n c3 a

hjfi iM •*•"*

rt £

& 8

T ,4 .TS

K •; w

•o S

OJ Wi

O aS ^

cu *a -g

^ ^ -5

2 I ^

^ -d

'S ^ o

rt c a

W3 >^

a-°

rt >^

§ S,
•8

bJO »-•

*- S ^
j 'JP 0>

•^n

a <u
^ 8 -g
^ S

- bo

ri

84 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

addressing the old reliable firm of Hitchings & Co., who keep
more fully abreast of all progress of heating, than can be given in
this work.

The internal arrangement of carnation houses, relative to
benches, solid beds, overhead surface, and sub- watering has
been exhaustively treated under these respective captions.

I desire to speak of locations for carnation houses, and em-
phasize sun-light and aeration as prime factors in growing good
carnations. Houses should be located and constructed to afford
the plants the fullest extent of these beneficences. The physical
anatomy of the carnation plant, the functions of its organs, and
years of observation, point to the great importance of these neglect-
ed features in houses constructed for growing carnations.

R. W. Winterstatter's tables, relating to the flowering of car-
nations, are the most accurate ever given to the carnation public.
They clearly establish the productiveness of bloom; that quality
and quantity largely depend on sunlight and ventilation.

The marvelous mechanical devices for ventilation leave lit-
tle to be desired in this particular. Profuse ventilation is an as-
cending note in the scale of successful house culture of carnations.
Fire in the furnace and the ventilators frequently and reasonably
raised, superficially seems a solecism, but profoundly it is phi-
losophy, experience, health and vigor for carnation plants.

All carnation houses should be located to secure the greatest
amount and longest duration of sunlight through the winter
months. It is an established physiological fact, that light power-
fully stimulates the reproductive forces of plants (which implies
flowering) at the expense of their vegetative or structural develop-
ment. This is illustrated by the immense blooms on small plants
grown under unshaded glass during summer months.

Much importance attaches to little things in growing carna-
tions. Little things make " 'quality." "Quality" is the cry of the
purchasing public, "quality" has been the shibboleth of those who
have won fortune and fame, in growing carnations.

Butting glass in green houses with an intervening metallic
strip was deemed the perfection of mechanical ingenuity, is now

RADIATING AND GLASS SURFACE. 85

generally discarded. It is one of the misfits between theory and
practice that often occurs.

It may be of interest to give tables prepared by B. A. Dud-
ley, representing a reliable heating and ventilating manufactur-
ing company. The following will be found a safe proportion men t
of heating surface to glass surface for various temperatures in the
greenhouses, when the temperature is at zero outside, with not
to exceed five pounds steam pressure at the boiler:

TABLE I.

PROPORTION OF HEATING TO GLASS SURFACE FOR MAIN-
TAINING DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES IN
GREENHOUSES.

Temperature.

Heating Surface

Glass Surface.

70 degrees.

square foot.

5 square feet.

65

i <

5^

60

< <

6

55

< <

6*4

50

it

7

45

i (

8

40

( (

9

Having determined the amount of heating surface, the next
point is its distribution, and for this nothing gives better results
than the "over-head" and "under-bed" system. This system
consists in carrying the flows through the peak of the house to
the end farthest from the boiler, then droDping and returning in
small pipes, preferably one-inch under tuc teds.

AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

TABLE II.

RADIATING SURFACE REQUIRED.

Square feet of
glass exposure.

Number of Square feet of Radiating Surface Required at

40 degrees.

45 degrees.

50 degrees

60 degrees.

70 degrees.

25

2 7-9

3 1-8

3 4-7 | 4 1-6

5

50

5 5-9

61-4

7 1-7

8 1-3

IO

75

8

9

10

8T3

15

IOO

ii

13

14

17

20

200

'23

25

30

33

40

300

34

38

43

50

60

4OO

,45

50

57

67

80

500

£56

63

72

[83!

IOO

1,000

112

125

143

167

2OO

2,000

223

250

286

333

400

3,000

334

375

429

500

600

4,000

445

500

571

667

800

5,000

556

625

714

833

I.OOO

f 1 0,000

1,112

1,250

1,429

1,667

2,000

20,000

2,223

2,500

2,857

3,333

4,000

3O,OOO

3,334

3,750

4,286

5,000

6,000

4O,OOO

4,445

5,000

5,714

6,667

8,000

50,000

5,556

6,250

7,143

8,333

10,000

TABLE III.

Size of Pipe.

ti

f

I

ii

i*

Length of pipe per square foot ot
radiating surface.

4.502

3-637

2.903

2.301

2.010

Number of square feet in one lineal
foot of pipe.

.221

.274

•344

•434

•497

Size of pipe.

2

4

3

3*

4

Length of pipe per square foot of
radiating surface.

1.61 1

1.328

1.091

955

.849

Number of square feet in one lineal
foot of pipe.

.62 [

.752

.916

1.044

i 178

CONSTRUCTING CARNATION HOUSES. 87

Amounts of surface necessary to heat a given amount of glass be-
ing figured on the basis that the house is well built, Hght, and
moderately protected from the prevailing winds. Under these
circumstances, it will be found fairly accurate.

The ideal glass house for growing carnations for commercial
purposes has not yet been built. Growing carnations under glass
through the summer and the removal of them from the field to
the benches so much earlier than formerly and long before the
hot season, in this latitude, being past, makes the old style green-
house ill adapted to the changed system of cultivation. They
confine suffocating hot air, which natural forces would rapidly
equalize with outdoor conditions if given a chance in their
construction. Under bench, and side ventilation amounts to
but little in a tier of a dozen houses. Front and rear access of air
is not esteemed as it should be, and at best is insufficient in long
houses. The air must be kept in rapid motion, with the adjuncts
of moisture and shade, to maintain a healthy temperature for
carnations. I know of a grower that takes out a row of glass
along the heel of the rafters during summer with noticeable bene-
fit to his plants.

There is a field open for cheap and practical improvements in
greenhouse structures in adapting them the better for growing
carnations under glass in either summer or winter weather.

The Dale Estate greenhouses at Brampton, Ontario, are 840
feet long and 8 in number. They are supported by a trussed
roof, contain tile beds raised 16 inches from the ground The
Massachusetts experimental station, after conclusive trials, says
that all plants make better growth with the heating pipes under the
benches. The under bench system of heating consumes less fuel.
Water leaving the boilers, at 120 degrees Fahr., will maintain a
temperature in the same house, 6 degrees higher, with the pipes
under the benches, as against the overhead system of heating.

AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

EGYPT.

This carnation originated with Weber & Sons, Oakland, Md., and
was disseminated jn 1901.

CHAPTER XVII.

FERTILIZERS FOR CARNATIONS— FORMULAS— EFFECT OF

CARNATION NUTRIENTS— EXACT ELEMENTS IN A GIVEN

QUALITY OF CARNATION STEMS, ROOTS AND

LEAVES.

EXCESS of assimilated nutriment unbalances the vegetative
and reproductive forces in both animals and plants. A fat
animal looses its desire to cohabit, and its power to con-
ceive. A potato will yield no tubers on a dung hill, nor will a
rapidly growing tree produce any fruit. An abnormally robust
carnation plant will produce no flowers. When nature extrava-
gantly expends on one side, it economizes on the other. A
blossom is the heat of a plant's passion, as love is the ardor of an
animal's desire. The number of flowers that a plant will yield
is in the inverse ratio to its abnormal foliage. A carnation plant
whose vegetative force has over-balanced its reproductive
energies, cannot be equalized during its brief existence. It may be
fed up, but never dieted down. It is a disease, a destruction of
the equilibrium between the assimilating and excretory forces of
the organism.

The drift is toward chemical combinations for fertilizing car-
nations; but I think the uncompounded nutriments, such as
gound bone, lime, wood ashes, cow and sheep manure, are safer
and better. Nature would not have constructed a laboratory of
vital synthetical chemistry in the penetralia of a plant system if
it had designed man to operate its nutrient pharmacy.

Soil favorable to the growth of the primal Dianthus family
contained but little humus, and all vestiges of ancestry in plants
or animals are never completely obliterated in their progeny. A
carnation grower asks through a recent trade journal, "What is
the matter with my carnation plants? I made the bench soil out of

90 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

half rotted manure, fertilize once a week with manure water. They
are robust and vigorous plants, but won't give much bloom, and
what few they do afford are small and indifferent." The Carna-
tion Editor without elucidating the law of vegetable life, replied.
"They will all come right." Healthy equalization of life forces
will not occur in their brief existence. The questioner can cart
his carnation brush to the compost pile in June without enough
flowers to pay him for the heat and humus he has used.

A carnation should be started on plain food. It can be fed up
to physical excellence, and grand flowers. There is no reliable
anti-fat remedy known. A fat animal is comparatively barren.
A fat, or over- fed carnation plant is equally so of flowers. They
are but an incident in the process of fecundity.

Formerly soils were analyzed, and the food for plants in-
ferred. Now plants are analyzed and their food requirements
supplied. To know what elements a plant is composed of is to
know the nutriments it needs. A reliable analysis of a definite
quantity of normal carnations, embracing roots, stems and leaves,
by Martin Smith, shows they are composed of 73.4 per cent water,
26.6 per cent dry matter, which was resolved into

Silica 4-63

Iron and Alumina 21.33

Carbonate of Lime 22.61

Magnesia 2.18

Potash 29.16

Soda 2.88

Sulphuric Acid 3.16

Phosphoric Acid 12.56

Carbonic Acid Chlorine etc. . 1.49

100.00

This analysis is significant and conclusive in showing the
mineral elements needed in the chemical fertilizers, and vindi-
cates the experiments of fertilizers made by the Massachussetts
station on carnations under glass. Out of thirteen different com-
pounds, the one containing Sulphate of Potash with Sulphate of
Ammonia gave the best results as to vigor of the plants and the

FERTILIZERS FOR CARNATIONS 91

productiveness of bloom; and out of six tests of single fertilizers
Nitrate of Potash gave the best results. Need theory, experience,
and philosophy, on fertilizers for carnation seek any more con-
clusive information ?

The consensus of opinion today is, that partially decayed
manure is positively injurious to carnation plants, and no matter
how well rotted, it does not contain all the elements of food that
carnations need for their highest development.

There is a growing trend towards the use of chemical car-
nation nutriments. The chemical and physiological knowledge
now possessed of plants, points to phosphoric acid, potash, and
nitrogen, as the three prime elements in plant growth, and all
fertilizers should possess one or more of these elements in some
form.

Prof. Weyman's great fertilizing formula contains all the
mineral elements of carnation food.

Phosphate of ammonia 2 oz.

Nitrate of Soda if oz.

Sulphate of ammonia if oz.

Water 50 gal.

Mix and use a light application to the soil every ten days.
A very successful carnation grower for a top dressing on his
carnation benches, uses

Screened stable manure 4 bushels.

Ground bone ^ peck.

Wood ashes ^ bushel.

Slacked lime ^ peck.

Ground bone and the potash in wood ashes are always in
order. Sheep manure is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus.
Ground bone and well rotted manure is one of the best fertilizers
for carnations, both in the field and on the benches.

The following formulas possess, theoretically, the best carna-
tion food, while for efficiency they have been practically tested:

Nitrate of Soda 31 Ibs.

Sulphate of Ammonia 13 Ibs.

Phosphoric Acid 130 Ibs.

Sulphate of Potash 26 Ibs.

92 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Thoroughly mix, and dissolve one pound in sixteen gallons
of water and use two gallons to a square yard of bench surface
every two weeks.

Mulching carnation beds is esteemed by some as a valuable
mode of fertilizing the soil. Well rotted, finely sifted manure
makes a good mulch.

All liquid food as a stimulus for plants should be used weak
and often, rather than strong and infrequently. Since the intro-
duction of carnations there is no record of showers of quails and
manna, or liquid phosphate and nitrogen. A successful grower
uses the following fertilizing formula: .- .

Sheep manure i peck.

Nitrate of Soda 2 quarts.

Cow manure. 3 pecks.

Water , 50 gallons.

Mix and apply on the benches moderately every two weeks.

The physiology of a carnation plant is to send its feeding
rootlets toward the surface for its supply of nourishment. The
carnation grower that mulches with sheep, cow or well rotted
stable manure, and judiciously uses on the surface fine ground
bone, and Prof. Weyman's fertilizing formula, can depend upon
acting in harmony with the plant's nature, and in furnishing it
with the most healthful and essential food nutrients.

Growers are given to puting too highly enriched soil in the
start on the benches, avoiding this error, there is epitomized in
this chapter the essence of all that is known, or will be known,
relative to carnation fertilization. But the last word has never
yet been said on any subject; nature enjoins "Finis" being
written in any volume of her unfolding scriptures.

Dianthus Superba, that has been evolved, requires more
moisture and humus and less mineral elements for nutriment,
than Dianthus Semperflorens.

CARNATIONS ^SWAYNE AND LAMBORN.'

SWAYNE AND LAMBORN.

Originated by Bdward Swayne, Kennett Square, Pa. Disseminated in 1888.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DISEASES OF CARNATIONS CAUSED BY INSECTS— GREENFLY

(Rhopalosiphum Dianthi] — RED SPIDER ( Tetranychus

Telarius}— NEMATODE (Heterodera Radicicola}—

THRIPS— REMEDIES.

CARNATIONS in the United States are freer from all kinds
of diseases than they were five years ago. The epidemic
of Rust that occurred in the early nineties threatened the
continued cultivation of carnations, and frightened growers into
radical precautionary measures to secure the health for their
plants, in all the phases of their life, between the cutting bench
and the compost pile. There is no disease of carnations the grow-
er now need fear, if he starts with healthy cuttings and follows
them through their mutations with the best known hygienic con-
ditions.

Growers must abandon the idea that their duties consist in
mixing villanous compounds for carnation ailments, and making
their greenhouses hospitals for diseased ones, or sanitariums for
their recovery. The prophylactic method is the only one on which
to grow carnations. The pharmacy must be preventive, not cura-
tive; and their nutrients normal and not concocted. It is enough to
give carnations vital paresis to carry the ponderous names pro-
fessors from experimental stations give to their real and imagi-
nary malidies.

To the common mind the Etiology, Pathology and Thera-
puetics of carnation diseases are as nebulous as was Heckel's
chaotic ether, out of which he moulded worlds.

GREENFLY (Rhopalosiphum Dianthi.}

All the serious troubles which assail carnations arrange them-
selves under the heads of insect and fungous enemies. Of these
the Greenfly is the sapper and miner and leads the enemies, as-

THE GREENFLY. 95

saults on the citidel of the carnation's life. Professor Theodore
Woods, of the United States Agricultural Department says :

''There is not a plant or tree, wild or cultivated, that escapes
the ravages of this pest, and of all the beings that rank under the
head of injurious insects there is not one capable of causing more
distruction than the Greenfly."

Both the primary and secondary effect of the piercings of an
Aphid makes it the carnation's greatest enemy, its powers of mul-
tiplication are so enormously rapid, that, abetted by the Locust and
San Jose scale, if they were not restrained by destructive enemies
of their own, would soon denude the world of vegetation. Like
the barbarians from the northern hive that overran and destroyed
Roman civilization in the fifth century, the Aphides feed upon
everything that floats the plasm of vegetable life. Entomologists
say its most delectable menu is the rich blood of the Dianthus
genus of plants.

This insect is too well known to
need any description. It multiplies by
agamic reproduction. Little cells, or
nodes develop on the inner walls of
the parent's abdomen, which are rapid-
ly detached, and in a few hours are de-
livered by its parent as live Aphides.
Remeur estimates that one Aphid may
be the progenitor of 6,000,000 lineal
descendants in a single season. They
breathe through openings in their An Aphid, highly magnified,
sides. Some of their offspring have wings so they may more easily
scatter their countless numbers. Their mode of continuing their
species is an exact duplication of continuing carnations by cuttings.
It is recommended to the consideration of advocates of the running-
out theory. Long years of agamic life has entailed no degeneracy
on the Greenfly. It is as virile today as when its first parent thrust
its proboscis into the protoplasm of a dianthus leaf. The voracity
of the Greenfly is only equaled by its prodigous geometrical powers
of multiplication They feed like vampires on the vegetable

96 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

blood of plants; their organisms are minature sugar refineries, con-
verting great quantities of elaborated life sustaining elements in
the vital sap into what is called "honey dew" on which termites,
or ants, greedily subsist. Like the fabled filthy Harpies, sent by
Juno to destroy the tables of Pheneas, the lances of these green-
coated -myrids are tipped with poison, and a train of devastating
evils follow in their wake. They deposite a virus in the plasm of
the leaf fatal to life, and the cells collapse and die. They open
lesions on stems and leaves in which the leprosy of Rust germi-
nates its spores.

Professor Woods has been unable to inoculate a healthy
carnation leaf with the Fungi of Rust, the leaf must first have its
epidermis lesioned, or perforated by puncturing pests. (The first
part of the next chapter makes consecutive reading with this.)

REMEDY.

Spraying water with force will knock many Aphides from
their lodgments on affected plants, but the older ones soon regain
their feeding grounds. The fumes of tobacco are a specific for
Greenflies. This is so cheap, effective and easily applied, it is use-
less to seek other remedies. The tobacco smoke can only be ap-
plied in an enclosure capable of confining the smoke for a time
for respiration by the insects. The narcotic principle in tobacco,
so poisonous to Aphides, is called nicotine. Tobacco stems are
chiefly obtained in bales from tobacco factories at little cost, to
possess their full Aphides toxin they must be fresh, and should
be dampened before being burned in the greenhouses, this causes
them to give out a slower, denser and cooler volume of smoke.
Every carnation house should be fumigated once a week with
tobacco, without any reference to an observable appearance of the
Greenfly. A bushel of tobacco stems is sufficient for a large
house if used as a preventive. Nicotine is a specific for Aphides,
Red Spider and Thrips. Flowers should always be picked before
the house is fumigated; they keep better and the odor of tobacco
is dissipated before they are ready to be re-picked.

THE RED SPIDER. 97

The United States department of Agriculture has experi-
mented with fifteen remedies for Greenfly, and the most effective
one is resin, dissolved in caustic soda. Its effect is said to be mark-
ed and immediate. The active principle of tobacco is offered in
commerce under the name oi nicotine and used as a spray by dis-
solving half a pint in three gallons of water. Resin, dissolved in
carbon oil, is recommended. Tobacco stems, steeped in water un-
til it is the color of coffee, and apply ed as a spray is effective. A
teaspoonful of pyrethum, dissolved in two gallons of water, used
as a spray, will also exterminate the Greenfly.

The formula for fumigating with hydrocyanic acid gas, is
ninety-eight per cent cyanide of potash, one half ounce, one ounce
of sulphuric acid, and three ounces of water for every 1500 cubic
feet of house space. The fumes should continue through the
night. This is one of the most powerful and deadly poisons known
to pharmacy and should be used with the greatest care.

RED SPIDER (Tetranychus Telarius.')

The entomological history of this insect is yet to be written.
The broods hatch from eggs, and their rate of multiplication is
considered equal to that of the Greenfly. It spins a delicate wrebb
over the leaves, and subsists on the vital juices of the plant. A
dry atmosphere and fire heat favors the reproduction of this pest.
It is not confined alone to greenhouses, but the vegetable world is
its habitat, and the juices of most species of plants, its food.

REMEDIES.

Syringing with water has but a temporary effect. Maintain-
ing an atmosphere in the house of seventy-five degrees of hygro-
metric moisture is not inimicable to the health of plants and is
fatal to the Red Spider. Spraying with two ounces of Ivory soap
in two gallons of water will bring the Red Spider under control.

Another remedy: Take four pounds of Chloride of Sodium
(common salt), to fifty gallons of water and use as a fine spray
is alleged to be an effective remedy.

98 AMERICAN CARNATION CTTLTCRE.

THRIPS.

These pests have wings and six legs, are quick and active,
making short flights, giving the appearance of hopping. They
attack carnations in the field, and are carried into the houses with
the plants. Thrips work their way through the calyxes when
carnations are developing their buds, feed on the tender petals,
and lay their eggs on the inner side and upper end of the calyx
valves. In these crypts they are largely immunes from fumes
and sprays. There are but few localities in the states where Thrips

Appearance of shoot affected by carnation Thrip or Twitter.

are troublesome. They are a hard enemy to combat, being en-
cased in the tissue of the plants, tobacco fumes so feebly nar-
cotize Thrips that they mostly recover from the stupor. They are
most common with plants grown in sandy soil.

REMEDY.

Caustic Potash i Ib.

Fish Oil 3 pts.

Soft water 2 gals.

Dissolve the potash in water, add the water, boil and stir for
half an hour, use when cold as a spray. This is considered the

NEMATOt>E. 99

most effective remedy known, for Thrips, Greenfly and Red
Spider; but there will be some so secreted they cannot be reached
without successive applications.

ROOT NEMATODE (Hiterodera Radidcola.}

This disease was first noticed in 1885. Symptoms are a
browning and shriveling of the plant's tissues, usually on one
side, from below upward, involving finally the death of the whole
plant. On the medium size roots may be found galls, about an
eighth of an inch in diameter, and these little galls, or nodules,
contain the eggs of the Nematode, which hatch into worms, that
migrate to fresh roots and repeat generation. Prof. Atkinson at
first described the pathology of this disease. Fortunately it is not
very common, and is most likely to occur in soil taken from un-
der trees, or near hedges.

REMEDY.

The only remedy suggested is sterilizing the soil before it is
put on the benches, by steam heat, to a point that would destroy
all germs of this life.

CHAPTER XIX.

DISEASES OF CARNATIONS FROM FUNGI, RUST (Uromyces Caryo-

phyllinus)-WKT STEM ROT (Rhizoctonia)-T)KN STEM ROT

(Fusarium)-SPOT DISEASE (Septoria Dianthi} —

FAIRY RING (Heterosporium Echinulatum.}

—REMEDIES.

THIS destructive disease appeared as an epidemic in 1892, it
seems now to be under control from the use of fungicides,
and better sanitary conditions in carnation houses. The
presence of Rust can be detected by spots on the leaves and stems,
looking like little blisters, under which there is a fine snufF-
colored dust. The covering of this dark powder is a semi-pellucid
layer of the plant's epidermis. When it is broken a cloud of spores
is released to scatter the infection, when the blister does not yield
this dark powder it is not Rust. However fatal fungicides may
be to active or dormant spores, it is difficult to reach those shield-
ed by a layer of skin on the plant's leaves.

CARNATION RUST (Uromyces Caryophyllinus.*)

Prof. A. Woods, chief of the division of vegetable physiology,
U. S. department of agriculture, in a formal address takes a
radically new ground on the causes of bacterial diseases of carna
tions. He says the old name "Bacteriosis" for that class of car-
nation diseases should be dropped as inappropriate, and "Stigmo-
nose" or ' 'punctured disease" substituted; that the bacteria found
on carnations are the results of the poisonous punctures of the
Greenfly, Red Spider, and Thrips. Prof. Woods supports his
pathological theory with cogent facts and illustrations. Suppura-
tion in a wound is caused by bacteria and is obviated by sterilized
and germicidal dressings. It is reasonable that the ever present
spores of Rust would find lodgment and germinate in wounds of

CARNATION

a plant's tissues, in which case they cannot be considered the
primary cause, but a resulting aggravation.

"Stigmonose" is the combination of two Greek words mean-
ing a disease resulting from stinging or piercing. Prof. Woods
originated the word and revolutionized the etiology and path-
ology of the "Rust" disease. Prof. Woods and Dr. Bissy both
have ineffectually tried to inoculate a healthy matured carnation
leaf with Rust spores; and they had not the power to penetrate
the waxy bloom on the epidermis of the foliage. They must
find a lodgment in a lesion or puncture to multiply their million
spores. Prof. Halstead of Rutters College, N. J., thinks the spores
of Rust find lodgment and vegetate in the stoma, or breathing
pores of the leaves of carnations.

It is asserted with microscopic assurance that the gos-
samer filaments of Rust roots penetrate every part of the plant's
structure, even to their roots, and thus assail the vigor of the
plant's constitution, and continue the leprosy in its cuttings. If
the ruinous effect of the Rust were confined to the local spots
where the blisters appear, it would be robbed of its terrors. But
its roots permeate the entire organism of the plant. It feeds as
voraciously on the vital essence of the plant as its spores are
countless in their numbers. Rust sends out its thread-like roots
into every ward of the plant's system, to feed on the sugar and
vital pabulum that the plant elaborates to keep alive its vital fire of
life, and the plant declines and dies in the merciless grasp of the
root-tenticles of this insidious vegetable Octopus. Prof. Woods
asserts Rust spores vegetate in lesions of the plant's leaves, I
maintain it is in the plants and cuttings by division of its roots. A
carnation plant constitutionally effected with this terrible parasite
can never be cured.

Dropping the continuity of the gossamer roots of this Fungi
through the structure of the plant's organism and accepting the
stage of its development referred to by Prof. Dana, in which seg-
ments of these penetrating radicals are seen with a microscope,
floating in the plasm of the principal cells of the plant, make
it easy to conceive how closely this fungus is associated with the

1Q2; AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

plant's life. Life lives in cells, cells are the primal units of life.
A cutting consists of thousands associated cells. A carnation cut-
ting, apparently healthy, taken from a Rust diseased plant, will
develop the disease in the cutting bench, which can only be
done by transmission of the malady to the progeny by root germs.

This theory of the etiology, and pathology of the Rust
Disease, is supported by facts and unravels many paradoxes and
solves riddles of the sphinx. It explains why cuttings are at-
tacked with Rust in the propagating bench. Why a variety
exempt one season is affected the nexl; why measures against it
must be prophylactic and not remedial; why some plants seems to
be immunes to Rust when their close neighbors are badly affected;
why promising new varieties as Blanch, Edna Craig, Jacque-
minot, Uncle John, and others, having contracted Rust constitu-
tion, transmitted them and were soon dropped from the roster of
commercial varieties.

The importance of Bacteria lies in their insignificance. Their
strength is in their weakness, their devastation in their unseen
methods. The aggregation of atomic forces works amazing
results; the coral insect builds rock -based islands in the ocean.

The following formulas as preventative therapeutics for Rust
are invaluable and should never be neglected. Some are said to be
specifics for Rust in the initiative and local phase of its progress.

Hifif. i.
Leaf of Carnation, with several rust pustules.

Prophylactic treatment is the only cure for Rust, but it can
be held in check by the use of various fungicides.

REMEDIES.

Mr. Dorner's formula has proven effective for pustules. It is
as follows:

REMEDIES, 103

Sulphate of copper i Ib.

Ammonia 2 qts.

Soft Water 6 qts.

To one pint of this mixture add two quarts of Ammonia,
stirred in a barrel of water and the plants should be well syringed
every two weeks on a clear day.

The following formulas have been experimented with, giving
substantially the same beneficial results:

The liquid Bordeaux mixture consists of

Copper Sulphate 6 Ibs.

Quick L,ime 5 Ibs.

Water 22 gals.

Chloride Copper 3 oz.

Water 22 gals.

Sulphide of Potassium 2 oz.

Water 22 gals.

Arsenical formula for Rust:

Arsenous Acid. 616 grains.

Carbonate of Potash 1236 ounces.

Water 5 ounces.

Heat to make the solution. One ounce to a gallon of water,
used as a spray. It is asserted this will not only check but
exterminate Rust.

Mr. C. W. Ward's treatment is prophylactic and effective, I
quote his own language:

DIPPING. — All young plants are immersed in the liquid
Bordeaux mixture when set in the open ground. All mature
plants are immersed (tops only, not the roots) in the same mix-
ture when benched in.

SPRAYING. — All young plants are sprayed with either the
liquid Bordeaux or ammonia solution once in two weeks while
under glass, and all field plants are sprayed the same in field.

FOSTITE — Under glass all plant houses are blown full of
Fostite in a fine cloud, every dark, cloudy day.

104 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Dry Bordeaux is sprinkled over all paths and under all
benches every two months.

Carnation plants should not be syringed if any trace of Rust
or Spot is about the premises. All diseased plants should be
promptly burned.

By the above means we have not had a trace of rust on our
stock."

FAIRY RINGS (Heterospotium Echinulatum.)
This is a trouble easily controlled by using a half-pound of
carbolic acid diluted, and used as a spray. >

FUNGUS IN THE CUTTING BENCH.
This variety of Fungus is believed to be identical with the
one causing wet stem rot (Rhizoctonia) , the conditions being
similar for its development in both instances, a close atmosphere,
moisture, heat and decaying vegetable elements in the bench-sand
is the cause of Rhizoctonia in the cutting bench.

REMEDY.

Use sand, free from all impurities, renew it once a year,
white- wash the bottom and sides of the bench with fresh slacked
lime before it is filled with sand, and there will be no trouble
from this fungus.

WET STEM ROT (Rhizoctonia.')

This disease affects carnations in the field and on the benches,
and sometimes is very destructive. It is characterized by a moist
condition of the skin on the stem of the plant. If it is twisted, the
bark or skin will be found dead and disconnected with the sub-
tissue. It is most likely to occur on plants of a soft growth, in
hot weather, deficient light, wet spongy soil, that contains much
decaying organic matter, poor drainage and imperfect circulation
of air. Prof. Woods says it is caused by a fungus that may be de-
tected by the unassisted eye, and is favored by acid soils, excess
of heat, moisture and manure. Lime will reduce its frequency.

WET STEM HOT. 105

The Geneva experimental station has discovered it on thirty
species of cultivated plants. It causes leaf rot in lettuce and is
the fungus of the cutting bench. It is propagated through the
soil and not the air.

REMEDY.

Reverse abnormal conditions with cultural methods. L,ime
as a remedy is indicated by Mr. Scott, who is an extensive carna-
tion grower, in a soil strongly impregnated with lime, and reports
substantially no stem rot. Mr. May, an observing cultivator of
carnations, says he lost seventy- five per cent of his plants with
stem rot, but after giving his soil fifty bushels of lime to the acre,
has grown carnations on the same land without any stem rot
trouble. This fungus spreads slowly through the soil, but never
through the air. It luxuriates in moist decaying vegetable matter
and attacks the stems and roots of carnations and other plants.

SPOT DISEASE (Septoria Dianthi.)

This disease was first noticed in 1889. It is recognized by
roundish spots on the leaves and stems of the plant, has a pale
yellowish color on the margin of the healthy tissue around
which is a tinge of purple or red. The spots are easily dis-
tinguished from either side of the leaf, there are numerous black
dots scattered over the pale area, which gives the name to the
disease.

REMEDY.

Make a strong tea of Coculus Indicus, also a tea equally as
strong of Quassa, a half-pound of carbolic acid. To each half pint
of above add ten grains of corrosive sublimate. Use one table-
spoonful to one gallon of water, as a spray.

DRY STEM ROT (Fztsatium.)

This is another disease of the stem of the carnation plant,
but not so general as the other. It is caused by a fungus that de-
velops in the capilliary vessels of the stem, causing it to become
dead, dry, hard and stringy. Prof. Woods says this fungus
thrives in a reverse condition of the soil favorable for the "Wet

106 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Stem Rot," and flourishes best in soil with an alkaline reaction,
and is a close relation of the fungus that is driving the cotton
industry out of North and South Carolina.

REMEDY.

None is definitely known. The fungus is in the soil. It is
possible to sterilize the soil on benches with steam, but it is not
practical in the field.

Courtesy of T. R. Pierson Co. , .'

MRS. THOMAS W. LAWSON.

The alleged 130.000 Carnation, showing the Silver Cups awarded it.

CHAPTER XX.

NUTRIENT DISEASES— INCIDENTAL PESTS- COHERING PETALS
—BARREN CARNATIONS— PURPLE JOINT (Rosette}— RUP-
TURED CALYXES— DOUBLE FLOWERING CARNATIONS.

NATURE and aethetics revolt at a ruptured calyx. Their
sweetest lyric is a perfect flower. The unfoldment ot
carnations has been along lines of least resistance. It is
easier for vital force to multiply and broaden petals, than to in-
crease the capacity of the calyx to accomodate them. Double
flowers are abnormal, and it is not strange the process by which
they are reached from the single flowering state should be marked
by hiharmony of structural development, the law of co-relation
being broken in its evolutionary march between the petal sand the
calyx.

The petals of a carnation flower contain different elements, on
analysis, from any other part of the plant. They inhale oxygen
and exhale carbonic acid gas, reversing the function of the foliage.
The calyx is composed of slow growing and strong fibers, feebly
connected with each other, and easily torn apart, while the petals
are soft, vascular, and grow rapidly; the sun paints the plant green
with chlorophyll, and the petals with a paradise of colors. It is
reasonable a hiatus should occur between the natural and artificial,
the calyx and petals, where difference in structures, functions and
momentums of life meet. A bursting carnation can never be
cured. Mrs. Carnegie, one of the best white- variegated varieties,
was an immune to all remedies, lived with this disease and died
with its terrors.

Bursting is aggravated by sudden changes of temperature and
imperfect ventilation. The calyx is strengthened by air and light,
given to buds on well supported stems. Heat also lengthens the
claws of the petals and lifts their breadth farther out of the mouth
of the calyx. Nature an4 selection, in cross -fertilization, is co-ordi-

108 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

nating the calyx and petal differences. The time is coming when a
bursted carnation will be regarded as anomalous. Ten out of the
thirty-six new carnations of 1901, the originators assert, never
burst their calyxes.

From a strictly botanical point of view the double flowering
carnation is itself a nutrient disease. It is the product of domesti-
cation, enforced selection, high culture and stimulating fertiliza-
tion. This is what has doubled its corolla, metamorphosed its
stamins into petals, aborted its organs of generation, and largely
barrened it of the powers of reproduction. Some varieties of
carnations have only sexual vestiges, others have stamins- and no
stigma, others stigma and no stamins. Yet it is a disease the
world adores. Like immortality, if untrue, is still a sweet delusive
dream that men hug fondly to their hearts.

BARREN CARNATIONS.

Very robust and vigorous growing carnations will sometimes
refuse to bloom, or what few flowers they do afford are small and
indifferent. Such carnations are diseased, there is a loss of equi-
librium between their absorbing and exhaling forces, the vegeta-
tive activies of the plants have extinguished their reproductive
natures, a fat animal has little desire, and less^ ability to repro-
duce itself. Its life forces are concerned in manufacturing fat
which supplants the inclination to procreate. Carnation plants that
loose this equipoise have always fat or overgrown vegetative
organs and functions, and are comparatively worthless, the coun-
terpoise equilibrium cannot be re-established during their short
lives. It is caused by the continued use of rich stimulating
nutrients.

COHERING PETALS.

Some varieties of carnations, at times, exude a sticky sub-
stance in their buds which causes the petals to adhere to each
other, the bud to become deformed, and the flower worthless.

This is caused by deranged nutritive functions of the plant,
from some unhealthy food element in the soil. Some ascribe the
cause to extremes of heat between day and night temperatures,

DISEASES Otf CARNATIONS. 109

but the true pathology ot cohering petals is an excess of stimu-
lating nutrients given the plants.

PURPLE JOINTS (Rosette.}

It is distinguished by a purple rosette, or coloring around the
joints. Neither the pathology or remedies for this trouble are
well understood. It is thought to be caused by overhead water-
ing, and the retention of water at the axil of the leaf, and de-
rainging local nutrient forces of the plant, if this is the case, the
remedy suggests itself. Fortunately the disease is very rare in
this country.

I have described all the diseases carnations are subject to in
America, in a brief and simple way, so any one with a $1.50
pocket microscope can determine for himself the nature of the
trouble with his plants. I have given the most reliable remedies,
and the most effective insecticide, germicide and fungicide formu-
las known to the carnation growing profession.

There are other incidental or trancient pests which assail the
carnation crop, such as Ants ( Termites flavips} , Rose leaf Tyer
(Cacoecia rosaceana) , Cabbage L,ooper (Plusia brassicae) , Varie-
gated cut worm (Peridroma sancia). The Ants rendezvous in
decaying wood about the house; especialy favorable encampments
are worm-eaten locust posts.

But these assailants are causal or fortuitous, and the good
judgment of every carnation grower will suggest an efficient
remedy.

MICE.

Mice at times do great damage by cutting and feeding on car-
nation plants on the benches.

REMEDY.

Keeping a cat in the houses and traps on the benches will
soon exterminate them.

GERMS IN BENCH SOIL.

Soil for carnation benches taken from under trees, or near
hedges contains germs, pupas, grubs and worms. The soil should
be sterilized by heat before being used.

CHAPTER XXI.

DO VARIETIES OF CARNATIONS DETERIORATE AND DIE?—

CONTINUING LIFE BY CUTTINGS -A NATURAL AND

VIRILE METHOD-AS PRESERVATIVE AS BY SEED

—OFTEN THE PROCESS INVIGORATES

WEAK SEEDLINGS

EVERY variety of carnation has a distinct character of its
own. Ignorance of its requirement extinguishes varieties,
by not supplying their unvoiced necessities. The advocates
of the ' 'Running Out" theory start with the assumption that the
life of every animal, tree and plant is bounded by infancy and
old age. This is true of individual organisms, but in no sense
applies to the life of varieties or species— men die, but the people
live forever. A carnation is a biennial plant, two years being the
duration of its life. We know the species has persisted over two
thousand years, it has renewed its life a thousand times and is
virile today as when Theophrastus picked up the little pendant in
the land of Leonadas and exclaimed in admiration, "Dio-anfhus !"
It has been continued by seed. A cutting continues life in a new
organism, with new cells and fresh pabulum, as much so as if it
originated from a seed. Weakness attaches to both, more to
plants germinated from seeds than from cuttings. There is
more hereditary degeneracy enfolded in a seed; not one-fourth of
carnation seedlings have enough vigor to survive, the rest are en-
ervated, or lapse toward monopetalism, while nearly all cuttings
produce robust plants. Propagating by cuttings is a natural pro-
cess for continuing life. It is simply the segmentary method nature
adopts in many plants that are the most tenacious of life, and in
the agamic process in the Zoophyte order of animals. A tomato
plant from a cutting will produce thirty per cent more fruit than
from a seed. Nature never inaugurated a law of decadence lor

"SURVIVAL OP THE FITTEST." Ill

her creations, but has written "virility" over the gateway of every
avenue of life. Propagating by cuttings is not devitalizing, but
still varieties are extinguished. The interest in new varieties
works neglect in old ones, hereditary weakness and insidious
disease follows in their wake and correspondingly in their merits.

Their is no biological law known, why any variety of healthy
carnations might not live forever under persistent sanitary reg-
ulations, and be as immortal as the fabled Phenix bird that lives
singly, but burns itself at stated times on a pyre of spices to rise
again from the ashes rejuvenated and persistent.

W. R. Shelmire, a critical and observing grower, thinks
propagating by cuttings invigorates the constitution of varieties
and in support of the assertion instances Buttercup, Swayne,
Lamborn, Century, Tidal Wave, and other varieties that had
more robust constitutions when they were supplanted by better
kinds than when they were first introduced.

A secret and mysterious fatality has waited on many new
and promising carnations. There is a recurrence of some occult
hereditary weakness that makes them the prey of bacteriosis, or
some other disease. Edna Craig began life most auspiciously. It
was disseminated with a blare of trumpets, but was struck
with an enfeebling palsy and sank into a soon -forgotten grave.
This was the case with "Uncle John," "Stuart," and a score
of others that possessed great expectation It is said the good die
young.

When new and better kinds of carnations are introduced, no
one is censurable for neglecting old ones; it is the unconscious
execution of Nature's law of the "Survival of the fittest" Life
lives in cells. They are the units of life in a cutting as in a seed.
Both are divorced from the parent plant and bide by nature to con-
tinue destiny. The only difference science sees between a cut-
ting and a seed, one continues existing life, the other starts a new
one, and age is more robust and virile than infancy.

Buttercup is the product of the first humble parents of
Alegatiere's new species of carnations imported to America. It
has renewed its life near a third of a century by cuttings since

112

AMERICAN CARNATION 'CULTURE.

Charles Starr stood dumb and dizzy before the illuminated letter
his tactful fingers had evolved in the "Alphabet of Angels." It
is as robust and vigorous today as when nature's Raphael glori-
fied its corolla with witching colors, painted on the petals, in the
morning of its natal bloom. Mythology says, but one immortal-
ity was granted the twins, Polux and Castor, so they lived and
died alternately. Science mocks at the myth that Buttercup is
given an immortality that is denied the rest of its species.

TYPE OF CARNATION WITH INDENTED PETALS.

CHAPTER XXII.

LIFE LIVES IN CELLS— CONCEPTION IS BY FISSION OF CELLS

—ORIGIN OF BUD VARIATIONS OR "SPORTS"—

BISEXUAL LIFE IN CARNATIONS— IN ALL

THE MONCECIAN CLASS OF PLANTS.

LIFE lives in microscopic cells, a cell is the unit of life. A
cell enfolds a vital spark. The structure of an elephant
or an aphid, is an association of cells, and their lives and
physic force is the concerted energy of aggregate cell life. Every
vegetable and animal organism is vitalized matter, built out of
physic animates. There is no spontaneity in life. Life has never
occured on this ball of dirt without antecedent life since the Cre-
ative Fiat first spoke it into a cell of quivering protoplastic jelly.
In the lower order of vegetable existences life is continued by
"segregation" a segment of the plant separates from the aggregate
and lives. Animals much higher than the Zoophyte class con-
tinue their species on the same principle and are devoid of genera-
tive organs. The execrated greenfly, at whose shrine florists
weekly pours the incense of tobacco fumes to propitiate its ab-
sence, multiplies its millions by little protuberances on the inner
walls of its abdomen, which rapidly detach themselves and are
hatched as living flies. In ascending the Monczcian order of
plants, the male and female organs of generation are joined in the
same flower and it requires the male pollen to fertilize the seed.
The male and female forces exist in the same plant, and their re-
spective organs are known as stamins and pistils.

In the Dicecian class of plants the sexes are separated and
live in trees and plants springing from different and their own
roots. One plant possesses only stamins the male organ of genera-
tion and pollen the male fertilizing dust; another plant possesses
only the pistils the female organ of generation with a gummy
stigma to receive and retain the male dust.

114 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

The carnation belongs to the "Moncecian" class of plants.
Male and female cells exist and are associated in the same plant,
and circulate in its common blood. The fact of distinct male and
female organs in the flower of the same plant proves that bisex-
ual cells conjointly exist as distinct entities in the same plant's or-
ganism. Otherwise it could not fertilize its own seed. If bisexual
cells do not jointly and harmoniously circulate in the plasm of a
carnation plant it could not vitilize its own seed, and both the
stamens or pistils in its flowers are useless organs. Carnations
blow what botanists call "a perfect flower," meaning a flower
capable of fructifying itself and continuing its species independent-
ly. Conclusions are so palpable that male and female cells flow in
the blood of a carnation plant and polarize their forces in the stamens
and pistils during the period of fecundation, that they are the
synonyms of facts.

The importance of this physiological fact consists in its being
denied, and in its acceptance being the basis of the only rational
theory of bud variations that can ever be adduced.

ORIGIN OF BUD VARIATION.

New life comes from the conjugation of vital forces of male
and female cells in the ovary of the plant. Necessarily there is
some confusion in a plant's circulation at the axis of a leaf about
to break into a bud, the walls of bisexual cells are ruptured and
they mix and mingle with life as it breaks into a bud which gives
this lateral branch a different character from the parent plant. The
color of the flower and habit of the branch are as unlike the parent
plant from which it grew as if it had been fertilized in the ovary by
the ordinary method of pollenization. This strange new branch is
called a "sport" or "bud variation." The difference between a sport
and a seedling is bisexual cells by accident mixed and mingled in
the germ of a bud, instead of an embryonic germ in the ovary.
Chester Pride, Edelweiss, H. Stanley, Starlight, Armazindy, Ore-
gon, and more than twenty- five other sports have been named,
disseminated and wore even honors with seedlings. Sports never
occur in plants that bear exclusively male or female flowers, be-

BISEXUAL JLIFE (IN CARNATIONS. Il5

cause their sap circulates only unisexual cells, and bud variations
cannot happen unless their is a vital union of diverse sexual cells
to work the variation. Strains of plants are produced by high
cultural methods, but varieties are the product of sexual forces in
the secret crypt of conception.

Sports carry into their constitution tonic and atonic hereditary
forces, the same as seedlings. Some are weaker than the parent
plant, others stronger, as is Chicago, a sport of Mrs. Bradt. It has
a more robust constitution and impressive color than its mother
plant. Artificial manipulation has caused carnations to produce
more offsprings by this abnormal method than any other class of
plants.

Carnations are largely rendered sterile by cross-fertilization
and cultural methods, and carried farther from their normal line
of life than any other class of plants. Nature's most heroic effort
is to continue life when it is threatened with extinction. Culture
and selection has largely aborted the stamens and pistils in car-
nations, destroyed or atrophied these organs of generation, elimi-
nated seed and their power to continue their species. Their ex-
istence is threatened, their life is in peril; in three years there
would not be a remontant carnation in existence if all art was
withdrawn from them.

Nature feeling the terrors of impending extinction provides
other avenues for continuing existence and substitutes them for
the ones art has closed. She makes the type easily continued by
cuttings, and varieties common by the fission of sexual cells in the
germ of a new branch at the nodes of the plant. The banana
was once a seeding plant; evolution changed it to a seedless one.
It now carries in its fleshy fruit only vestiges of aborted seeds by
which it once was propagated. For the abolished method nature
substitutes offsets as the means for its continuance.

Horticulture abolished seed for perpetuating the potato, then
Nature placed the germs for persisting its life in the structure of
its tubers. As art aborts the fecundity of carnations, nature
supplies the defects.

116 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

"Sports" are growing more common every year. They are
not freaks, but one of Nature's reserved methods for continuing
species when its existence is threatened. There is no more mys-
tery in new life by bud variation than from a seed; both are
riddles of the sphynx at which the world will ever wonder.

The engraving of the American Flag carnation is a good il-
lustration of a "Sport." It was a bud variation of scarlet Portia.
It originated with Mr. Bergman of New Jersey, and was dissemi-
nated by the late Peter Henderson, in 1891. It was the most
evenly and distinctly marked red and white carnation ever on the
market. It also illustrates atavism, or suspended heredity, in its
parent Portia and that some of its ancestors were white and par-
tially renewed their features in the carnation American Flag.

The muddy water of the Missouri river flows for miles un-
mingled with the crystal tide of the Mississippi; in the plasm of
Portia flowed unmixed sexual cells, each dowered with pigments of
red and white. At the axil of a leaf and at the birth of a bud
(which is only a modified birth of a new life) there happened a
rupture and mingling of the contents of bisexual cells and a new
life mixed and mingled with a birth of new bud. The color of
flowers and the life of a plant are things apart. The American
Flag and all variegated varieties of carnations show in the fission
of bisexual cells that there is not a fusion of parential colors.

Different sex-cells are the legatees of diverse colors, yet they
ebb and flow in harmony in the plasmic current of a carnation's
life. The parent cells of the American Flag settled (out of court)
in the birth of a new bud on an equal division of petaline pigments.

The engraving of American Flag was sent to the author by
the late Peter Henderson to illustrate a former edition of AMERI-
CAN CARNATION CULTURE, and is esteemed as a memento of the
friendship of a noble man.

AMERICAN FLAG.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY OF THE COMMERICAL DIANTHUS

—PLANTS ARE EASILY MODIFIED BY CONDITIONS—

—SLIGHT CLIMATIC DIFFERENCES IN ADJOINING

COUNTRIES HAVE ENGENDERED NEW SPECIES.

NATURAL adaptation by selection developed the five-petaled
pink of Greece into the polypetalous Dianthus of Eu-
rope, a biennial, bearing the second season only one brief
but profuse crop of bloom. Alegatiere in 1848, by artificial polen-
ization, a possibility science had just brought to light, selected two
varieties, if not species, crossed fertilized them and obtained
a product with a tendency to scatter its bloom through its entire
life, instead of bunching it as its parents did in a brief multitu-
dinous crop. From this habit Alegatiere's new variety or species
has been called the Remontant Carnation, because it continually
remounted itself with flowers. It is also called the Semperflorens
carnation, semper meaning constantly; florens, flowers — constantly
flowering. It is called carnation, meaning flesh, or flesh colored.
There can be no doubt that the carnation had a pink color when
thus christened.

Alegatiere's new variety, or improved strain, has diffused itself
wherever men love and cultivate flowers. They have differentiated
and modified their habits and flowers to meet different climatic
conditions.

THE DIANTHUS IN GERMANY.

Eufurt and Quidenburg are the storm centers of the Dianthus
family of plants in Germany. Seedlings are germinated in frames,
under glass; when two or three inches high, they are transplanted
to the open field, in rows two feet apart and one foot between the
plants, where they will bloom the segond season. They are

THE DIANTHUS IN FRANCE. 119

for market into five and six-inch pots from the field, neatly trim-
med and staked, and will throw a remarkable profusion and
wealth of bloom. The strains of the varieties grown by the plants-
men are divided in bizzars, flakes, selfs and fancies. The most pop-
ular colors are crimson and scarlet with countless varying shades.
Special or choice varieties are invariably continued by layering
the lower branches of the plants in the field or in the pots.

THE DIANTHUS IN FRANCE.

In France, carnation cuttings are struck early in the fall in
cold frames, where they remain through the winter and are trans-
planted in the open ground early in the spring, where they bloom
profusely through the summer. Scarcely one of the hundreds of
kinds catalogued in France is recommended for winter blooming.
The demand for Dianthus flowers in France is through the sum-
mer and fall months, and in the winter and spring in America.
The period of demand for flowers helps to fix the type or habits of
the plant. They would naturally be bred to meet requirements
There is still another divergent cultivated in France and England
called the Malmaison. This variety of Dianthus bears unusually
large and showy flowers, the finest specimens measuring six
inches in diameter and commands a great price. But few of the
semperflorens type are grown in England as its muggy winters
seem fatal to their success. There is a section of Dianthus
called Border Pinks popular in some parts of England and are
abundant and attractive bloomers.

The prominence and importance given to the forcing type of
carnations in England can be fairly gauged by the new "English
Carnation Manual," in which, out of seventeen chapters devoted to
special types of carnations, but three are allotted to the perpetual
blooming kind, which absorbs all interest in America.

THE DIANTHUS NORTH AND SOUTH.

To show how quickly isotherms, or the annual average of
heat units affect the nature of carnations, I quote a declaration of
Mr. Dale, a competent and comprehensive florist of Canada, just on

120 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

the northern line, yet within the carnation belt, in saying: ''they
cannot produce as high grade carnation flowers in Canada as 4n
the states.' ' An experienced and practical floriculturist of St.
Louis, just on the southern limit of their normal zone, says carna-
tions do not flourish here Another correspondent from Louisville,
Ky., says: "Carnation plants do not succeed here; the summer
heat injures the plants and s^ops their growth." Another writes
from Birmingham, Ala., "Carnation flowers are esteemed here.
We import the plants in the fall from their habitat, as we do
Spirea and Bulbs, flower them under glass during the winter sea-
son, then throw them out." >

THE DIANTHUS IN CALIFORNIA.

A grower in California writes: "We root our cuttings in sand
without artificial heat, plant them out in the yards and lawns in
January, if in the field, in rows three feet apart and two feet dis-
tant from each other. Plants will bloom in six months and fre-
quently attain a diameter of three feet. A good specimen will
blow five hundred blossoms in a season and will continue to bloom
until new cuttings begin to flower. We never lift them. They will
live several years and are used to decorate lawns; their flowers have
but little commercial value. They grow best and burst their ca-
lyxes most in our wet season, which corresponds to your winter
and bloom and perfect their flowers best in our summer or dry
season. Seedlings are treated the same as cuttings; the latter are
only used to perpetuate some choice varieties."

Another correspondent writes from San Francisco: "Seivers &
Co. are raising fine carnations under glass. Their best variety is
Hanna-Hobart, bearing three and a half to four-inch flowers."
(Jumbo Hanna has not made her majestic entree yet in the sem-
perflorens belt.) "John O'Hara is building a house to be filled
this fall with Lawson. Crane does not give satisfaction here."

Lawson may maintain its missionary character in California
as an exhibition plant, as its originator informs a correspondent
through a trade journal that it needs a fifty-five night tempera-
ture to keep its calyx from committing /<?/b de se.

THE DIANTHUS IN CALIFORNIA. 121

The normal belt of the forcing carnation leaves all of Cali-
fornia to the south, but this marvelous spot of earth has a com-
posite climate of all the zones, with its snow-capped mountains
bathed in blue, its foot-hills in perfumed Junes, and the languorous
air of its sea-levels kissed and cooled by the ocean's waves, gives
it a flora mixed and marvelous.

The essential nature of a carnation can never be modified by
cuttings. This is done when bi -sexual cells meet in the socket of
the ovule. California carnations are a divergence by generations
of life begetments, modified in the act by the sorcery of climate.
Mons. Dalmias' "Atim" of L,yons, was the Adam of all the car-
nations in America, the chemistry of their plasm has been re-
composited in the alembic of life by the thaumaturgy of environ-
ments. They have conformed to nature's resistless law of the
survival of the fittest to live, to meet diverse conditions.

There have been ninety named kinds of carnations introduced
from California into the forcing belt; most of them in 1892-3-4
and a fevv of them catalogued the second season. They all doubt-
less possessed the latent qualities of being forced, and of perpetual
bloom, but required the climate jugglery of fecundation to de-
velop them. Eighty named carnations have been introduced
from Europe since the puritan L,a Puritie landed from its
Mayflower. Bouton de' Or was the last imported by Ziengerbel.
It was grown in this country privately for years, then put on the
market by the Dailledouze Bros, and discarded.

E. Sievers & Co. are growing carnations under glass in Cali-
fornia which may tend to redevelop the qualities desired in
the carnation belt proper. They have introduced Ethel Crocker
with much success and this year California Gold appears. Miss
Louise Faber and Purity are named as introductions from the
same state.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CARNATIONS THE PRODUCT OF ADAPTATION BY SELECTION—
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST— ORIGIN OF VARIETIES-
BASIS OF SPECIES— FOUNDATION OF GENERA-
ESSENCE OF ORDERS.

THE law of adaptation by selection may not be comprehend-
ed; it is the process by which carnations have become
what they are. Mr. Rudd has stated that he obtained
seventy-two carnation seeds from one pod, three times the average
number. If Mr. Rudd would sow these seeds, and they all germi-
nated and grew to their blossoming stage, when he would critical-
ly review the lot and destroy all that were weak, sickly, single-
flowered, off colored, short stemmed, bursted calyxes and procum-
bent habits, and repeat this operation a number of times during
several years until but one was left that approached his ideal of
what a carnation should be; then repeat this process on the seed of
this sole seedling for forty years, this would be artifically adapt-
ing the carnation to his ideal and wants, by selection.

It is estimated by cross- fertilizers that not one seedling in a
thousand is worthy even of a name. That one is the originator's
darling, he magnifies its merits and minimizes its faults; it is
again subjected to the growers, the elective court of last resort.
It merges all sentiment and flies the pirate's flag of sordid com-
mercialism, bearing the merciless motto of "How much money is
there in it" This is the final verdict on all questions in life, issued
daily, by the mercinary parliament of the world's religion.

In 1895 there were six hundred listed carnations in America.
Parties organized in the interests of carnations sent one thousand
circulars to carnation growers asking them to vote for or against
the merits of each carnation they grew, or knew, and return the

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 123

ballot to headquarters. But nine of the list received a majority

vote. These were:

Buttercup, Portia, Hellen Keller,

Daybreak, Lizzie McGowen, Edna Craig,

Grace Wilder, Tidal Wave, Sweetbrier.

These were the princes and princesses of the royal blood of
the dynasty of Dio anthos that ruled the world of flowers in
1895. They were the elective product of half a million seedlings,
and the strennous labor of hundreds of men with tactful fingers
for twenty years to enthrone beauty on the mountain's top, where
flora with flowers teaches worldlings the idiom of angels.

Every carnation that reaches general fame passes through
a crucial ordeal and runs a gauntlet of criticism to which no other
flower is subjected. Aristocracy in cross- fertilization cuts no
figure in its final make up. Silver flagons, gold medals and
special premiums of any peregrinating society, mutually admiring
each other's products, count for naught on the synthesis of a grand
carnation nor settle the toga it will wear.

Nature ''adapts by selection" by a similar method, but to a
different end. The persistence of the species is its pivotal purpose,
the hills and dales are its beds and benches, the clouds its fonts of
water, the sun its ceaseless thermal source and the deep blue bend-
ing sky its glorious dome of glass. A thousand carnation seeds are
scattered by the winds on congenial soil, they germinate and grow,
a long drouth occurs and the weakest die, a protracted wet ensues
and another lot sickens and succumbs. A protracted freeze hap-
pens and the tender ones fall, the weeds choke them, and all but a
few of the strongest abandon the struggle for life; vicissitudes of one
kind and another assail them until but one is left that is the "sur-
vival of the fittest," and the strongest to perpetuate itself. It sows
its seed and they are again subjected to the same selective process
for generations, and thus the clove-scented species of carnation be-
came established on the shores of the Mediterranean. This is
nature's method of "adaptation by selection" and originating
Species, while heredity slowly follows and fixes their permanency.

124 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE

Heredity and evolution are two forces in Nature. One is pro-
phetic; the other, reminiscent. One seeks to return to primitive
types, the other seeks to advance old standards. One yearns for
flesh pots; the other, for the promised land.

This simple law accounts for all the capricious habits and
modified forms of vegetation in the world. Every species of plants
has bands, belts, zones or isothermal lines along which they
reach their highest evolvement. If they are moved out of their
climatic home they sport into different types adapted by climatic
selection. Plants as they migrate toward the poles become an-
nuals; toward the equator, perennials. The Nasturtion is. an an-
nual vine in the temperate zone; a perennial shrub at the equator.
No carnation acclimatized in England, Germany or California
ever was, nor can be, immediately successful in the remontant car-
nation zone in the states.

Heredity is less strenuously impressed on embryonic life.
Henzie's White was from imported seed, as were many other ex-
cellent varieties. A carnation seed fertilized in Eufurt, if its an-
cestors possessed the forcing and perpetual blooming features of
the Alegatiere type, germinated and grown in Chicago, would
strongly incline to the type of carnations grown there. A Lap-
lander's child, born and bred in Boston, would imbibe the habits of
the "Hub" and "benevolently assimilate" with the decendants of
Miles Standish and Paul Reviere. Adaptation starts with new
life, in the crypt of conception, and not through a line of cuttings,
which is the continuance of old life. After fifteen generations of
life by cuttings, Henzie's White sulkily left the field to better
kinds, the same robust, hardy, late blooming carnation as when it
started on its conquering career.

Buttercup, the oldest carnation in cultivation, is today the
same proud, capricious, Cleopatrian queen, bewitching with its
dawn-lit beauty a world of Anthonys, as when it leaped from the
tactful fingers of Charles Starr, thirty years ago. Its amazing
health and vigorous constitution is a defiant denial that propaga-
ting by cuttings is devitalizing and an imperious assertion of the
fact that varieties die only from the poison of neglect. Bouton d'

CARNATION "CENTURY.1

125

Or was imported by Denny Zingerbel, and after years of cultiva-
tion in this country by cuttings, was put on the market by an in-
fluential firm to meet the fate of all foreign kinds, unnaturalized by
the process of home fructification.

CENTURY.

Originated by Chas. Starr, Avondale, Pa. Disseminated in 1886.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE LIMIT ZONE OF THE SEMPERFLORENS CARNATION-
ISOTHERMAL LINES— CLIMATIC CONDITIONS— EVERY TYPE
OF SPECIES CONFINED TO ITS ISOTHERM -THE CAR-
NATION'S IS FIFTY DEGREES MEAN HEAT.

AN isotherm is a band or belt of the earth's surface, across a
continent, along which a definite number of heat units are
evolved during the year, which gives the belt a certain an-
nual average temperature. Isotherms are not strait, regular lines.
Their courses are changed by large bodies of water, ranges of
mountains, and elevations of land above sea levels. On the volcano
of Teneriffe there are five successive different zones of heat, each
producing a different class of vegetation. An elevation of 1,000
feet above sea level equals one degree north latitude. Kvery iso-
therm on earth has its own Flora and Fauna, its modified men and
plants. Soil, sunlight, heat and moisture, are the prime features
in climate and factors of life. An isotherm is the composite of
these elements. No law in geographical botany is better deter-
mined than that a mean annual heat is required by each species of
plants for their full development, and that they will tolerate but a
slight variation in the number of yearly heat units without modi-
fying their nature to conform to conditions which accompany a
less or greater number.

It is surprising to how narrow a belt of specific annual heat
some species of plants confine themselves. The cotton plant will
submit to but 3 degrees of a variation. The sugar cane requires
83 degrees of heat to mature and will submit to but 5 degrees of a
change. It is not temporary fluctuations of temperature that af-
fect the fate of plants, but it is the number of heat units in the
definite time that rounds their lives into fruition. Some species
are more cosmopolitan in their nature, and their lives are normal
in broader zones.

ISOTHERMAL LINfiS. 127

The growing zone in the United States for the remontant
type of carnations lies between 37 degrees and 43 degrees north
latitude. The isotherm indicated on the map has a mean an-
nual temperature of 50 degrees. It is the equator of the empire
of Dianthus Semperflorens, the meridian of its home and health,
its profits and prophecies. It is the only belt of land on earth in
which Alegatiere's cross-fertilized product has developed into a
carnation that will unfold its petals to an Arctic sun and fling its
perfume on the winds of winter. Latitudes and longitudes are
imaginary lines on the earth's surface for geographical convenience.
Isotherms are lines drawn around the world by the finger of the
Almighty along which plants and animals hug congenial condi-
tions. These lines are as stable as the earth's axis and enduring as
their Fauna and Flora. It must not be understood that carna-
tions will not grow north or south of the 5o-degree isotherm, but
if they do, they must modify that specific type of character which
gives them esteemed value in that isotherm. Some forms of veg-
etation reach their greatest perfection when far removed from the
latitude of their nativity. The potato has an insignificant bulblet
in its native home, but feeds millions on its monstrous tubers in a
different latitude. There is a typical isotherm on which every
species of vegetation will reach its highest evolvement for the
gratification of man.

The 50- degree isotherm has been established by the Agricul-
tural Department of the United States government as far west as
the loo-degree of west longitude, by twenty years of accurate ex-
periments; west of that the department informs us the line is not
so well established, but is thought to bend rapidly to the north.
The line strikes the continent on the Atlantic seaboard near Bos-
ton, runs irregularly on the north of the 40 degrees north latitude
as far west as Denver and then from mountain ranges and gulf
stream inclines suddenly toward the north, striking the Pacific
Ocean near Vancouver Islands.

The average altitude of the land on this isotherm above sea
level is 1000 feet. It has an annual average rainfall of 40 inches,

128 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

75 per cent of relative humidity, 50 per cent of sunshine, 45 de-
grees of surface and 50 degrees of aerial temperatures.

The greenhouse treatment of carnations equalizes the ex-
tremes of the year's temperature but does not materially increase
the number of annual heat units. There is always much moist-
ure rapidly passing into vapor in housed carnations and absorbing
an immense volume of latent caloric, thus keeping the surface
temperature surprisingly low. Moisture and heat are inverse con-
ditions. The thermometer and hygrometer teeters with the tem-
perature: when one goes up the other goes down.

The primative La Puritie type of carnations by selection, has
been surely drifting into a different species, requiring more heat,
which supports the assumption that greenhouse methods for car-
nations has raised their annual mean temperature above that of
the natural isotherm. Mrs. Lawson, one of the highest types of
the new evolved species, was complained of by a grower to its
originator, Mr. Fisher, for bursting its calyxes, and he suggested
55 degrees night heat as the remedy. This is in full harmony
with the author's contention of an evolution of a new species of
carnation growing out of adaptation by selection and requiring an
artificial or natural isotherm of 55 or 60 degrees of annual he.at to
meet the requirements of its nature.

The 50 degree isotherm leaves all California to the south of
its belt. California's isotherm of 60 degrees has a type of carna-
tion of its own, adjusted through forty years from the same par-
ents to meet different climatic conditions and meets the sesthetical
tastes of the people of that climate as fully as does the L,a Puritie
type on the isotherm 50 degrees in north latitude.

In 1892-3-4 there were introduced over one hundred fine
named varieties of California carnations into the latitude of the
semperflorens type, and it was proven that their modified type was
not adapted immediately to the semperflorens zone. Mr. Linton
of Piru City, California, says that carnations there are grown out,
they live for several years, grow best in their wet or winter season,
and bloom best in their dry or summer season; they make a bush

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS. l2§

three feet high and two feet across; and a plant will blow from 200
to 500 blooms in a season.

Messrs. Hatfield and Tailby made special efforts to acclima-
tize foreign carnations in the native zone of the sernperflorens type
and failed. Mr. Hill visited Europe in the interest of this genus
of plants and purchased two hundred dollars worth of the most
promising kinds to naturalize them in the semperflorens zone and
in a short time had nothing to show for his time and expense.
Mr. Dorner obtained the finest strain of seed possible from
Bufurt, Germany, the storm center of splendid Selfs, Picotees
and Bizars to acclamatize in America, but without success in con-
tinuing their habits, Mr. Hancock imported one hundred and
thirty varieties from Germany and afforded them the best possible
conditions but without good results.

Any of the foregoing types of carnations that possessed the
particular inherent nature of distributing their enormous crops of
bloom through their mature lives and could be inspired to do so
by artificial heat, in a few generations could have been acclimated
to the zone of the semperflorens type. Less than forty genera-
tions of cross -fertilization and parental selection might have
evolved a Lawson out of a raw sulking emigrant possessing these
essential qualities which are pathognomonic of the species. No
semperflorens carnation ever reached high merit or commercial
importance that was not born within the boundary lines on the
map. Nature "invokes the curse of Rome" against invaders.
The genealogy of Mrs. Joliff is legendary and has never been es-
tablished. Peter Henderson was bred by Charlton in New York
and disseminated by Nanz and Nauner of Louisville, Ky.

Not only carnations but all plants that are transfered to new
climatic sections with different mean units of annual heat must be
naturalized or acclimated. Corn raised in Virginia will not ripen
in Canada's short season. Canada corn tak^n to Virginia is six
weeks' corn the first season, then lapses to its normal number of
heat units. No carnation, though it be of the same Alegatiere
origin, primarily inured to conditions in a different latitude ever
gave immediate satisfaction when moved on to the 50 degree iso-

130

AMERICAN CARNATION CtJl/TtJRE.

therm. This fact is abundantly proven by one hundred carnations
that have been imported from Europe and as many from Califor-
nia, very few from either source having appeared on the recom-
mended list the second time. Sievers of California is credited
with the origin of Ethel Crocker, but it was not grown from Cali-
fornia .seed, and Siever's glass treatment of carnations at San Fran-
cisco tends to normalize their nature to the requirements of the 50-
degree isotherm.

A higher mean annual temperature by greenhouse methods
may, if it has not already done so, evolve a new species of carna-
tion adapted to a higher artificial or natural isotherm than* 50 de-
grees. See chapter on a new species of carnation.

A TYPE OF CARNATION WITH SERRATED PETALS.

CHAPTER XXVI.

MAP OF 50 DEGREE ISOTHERM-THE NORMAL, CLIMATE OF

CARNATIONS -CREAM OF ALL THE CARNATIONS SINCE

THE BIRTH OF ASTORIA— NAMES, COLORS, PLACE

OF ORIGIN- ORIGINATORS' NAMES.

THERE was an importation of fertilized carnation seed from
Lyons, France, in 1858, another in 1862, another and two
plants, La Puritie and Edwardsii, in 1864. From the seed
of 1862 Astoria originated and is the oldest named carnation, to
the manor born, in America. Its origination is credited to Wil-
son, a neighbor florist of Zeiler, Gard & Co., who imported the
seed. It was a yellow-variegated variety of considerable merit,
and Wilson named it Astoria after the name of the place he lived,
on Long Island. Astoria was born and named two years before
La Puritie and Edwardsii were imported. La Puritie was a
foreigner though Lyons, France, is on the same isotherm as New
York. La Puritie inherited many of the defects of its ancestors
but enfolded in its nature mighty floral possibilities and has left a
line of beauty trailing down the ages. It was far from being
perfect but it was the best nature had evolved; it met the ideal of
the time. A right that happens too soon is half wrong; perfection
reached early is considered half a freak. The map will give the
dynasty of royal blood that has come to rule the world of flowers
and the boundaries of their empire.

Astoria was the first named carnation born in America from
Alegatiere seed cross-fertilized in France and brought over in
1862. Lady Emma was the first carnation born in America from
seed cross-fertilized by Charles Starr in 1875. The reader will
notice the hiatus in the list of new carnations between the dates
of 1875 and 1886. This was the nebulous era of American flori-

132 AMERICAN CARNATION CtTLTURU.

culture. There were no trade journals, no concert or organization
among the hundred and fifty primitive floral establishments of that
period. Carnations were grown from self-fertilized seed obtained
from the pods of the progeny of La Puritie, Astora, Miss Joliff
and their nameless compeers, and named as fancy suggested. Not
more than a dozen florists in the country during this interregnum,
meddled with or cared for the new born species of the Dianthus
genus of plants, and not a new carnation was originated during
these eleven years whose name passes on the records possessing
merit. Miss Joliff originated at the same time and from the same
source as Astoria. Both originated from Alegatiere's seed; though
years before La Puritie and Hdwardsii were imported. It is singu-
lar how regularly the royal line of new and great carnations have
kept step with recurring years. There are but few carnations un-
named and outside of the following chronological list that have
reached general acceptance.

But the humblest carnation that ever bloomed has been an
evangel of the gospel of beauty, and with voiceless colors has
brightened twilight gloom in some human heart.

I have incorporated into the select list a number of new car-
nations of 1901-2, not because their fate is fixed. Their destiny is
hurrying forward to the crucial crisis of the people's verdict: their
frowns are exile and their smiles are fame. A singular fatality
often waits on new carnations that are filled with splendid
promises. They become enfeebled by some mysterious marasmus
that leaves them an easy prey to bacteriosis or other diseases and
they quickly drop out of cultivation. This was the case with
Uncle John, The Stuart, Edna Craig, Empress, Sea Gull, Mammoth
Pearl, Kerskin and others. Like the Ephemera, they lived for but
a day, singing a ditty at dawn and a dirge at dusk. Then again
some carnation seedlings are unpromising at birth, but born with
an inspiring genus that points them steadily to the throne of Flora,
as were Wm. Scott, Mrs. Bradt, Daybreak and Buttercup.

In 1896 there were 1000 circulars sent to carnation growers
asking them to return votes for and against all the carnations

I

I

THE
.

CARNATION

Orginated by John Burton, Chestnut Hill, Phila , Pa. Disseminated in 1897.

134 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

they new and grew. There were only fifteen that received a ma-
jority of the votes. They were:

Tidal Wave, Thos Cartledge, Lizzie McGowen,

Puritan, Portia, Grace Wilder,

Sweetbrier, Orange Blossoms, Daybreak,

Stewart, Uncle John, Buttercup,

Albertina, Wm. Scott, Silver Spray.

Some varieties of carnations give eminent satisfaction in
certain localities of the carnation zone and are absolute failures in
other sections. What growers most admire in a carnation is its
cosmopolitism, such as is possessed in Daybreak, that received
but one vote for demerit in the carnation growing world.

The humblest carnation that ever bloomed has been and edu-
cator, served its purpose, and filled its mission. La Puritie was
as much esteemed in its time as the grandest variety is now.

These Royal Line carnations sprang from the loins of the race,
and have no particular pedigree, individual line of ancestry or
varietal blood. Greatness and genius are not hereditary, or trans-
missible in either the animal or vegetable kingdom. Great men
and great carnations, as a rule, spring from humble parents.
Three of the greatest Emperors Rome ever had were followed by
the most detestable sons that ever donned the purple.

The subjoined chronological table gives the cream of all the
carnations since the birth of Astoria in 1866, that have added
lusture to the marvelous pageant of their unfolding grandeur, the
date of their origin, the locality that gave them birth, their
names, colors, and with whom they originated. Find their local
nativity by figures on the zonal map corresponding with those in
the first column of the table.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

135

CHRONOI/DGICAI, LIST OF THE ROYAL LINK OF THE REMONTANT
HOUSE OF DIO ANTHOS.

MAP
NO.

Name.

Year.

Where Originated and by Whom.

Color.

Atim, ist catrfn.

1844

M. Dalmias, Lyons, France.

Improved.

1856

Alegatiere, Lyons, France.

I,

ist Seed Imp'ed.

1858

Zeiler, GardCo.,Flatbush, L. I.

Failed.

I

2nd Seed Imp'ed.

1862

< < « ti i ( < <

*

Astoria, seed '62.

1863

Wilson, Astoria, L. I.

Yel'-var

Two plants and

I

3rd Seed Im'ped.

1864

Zeiler, Gard Co., Flatbush, L.I.

I

La Puritie,

1864

« < < « « «

Pink.

I

Edwardsii.

1864

i < < < (i < < ii

White.

Joliff, seed '63.

1864

Unknown, Long Island.

Pink.

2

Lady Emma.

1875

Chas. Starr, Avondale, Pa.

Scarlet.

2

Springfield.

1876

< < ( < i < < t

Pink.

2

Chester Pride.

1877

« < t < « «

Wh'-var

2

Buttercup.

1878

<t 1 1 < < it

Yel'-var

I

Pres. DeGraw.

1878

Zeiler, Gard Co. Flatbush, L.I.

White.

3

Henzie's White.

1879

Breitmeyer, Detroit, Mich.

White.

4

P. Henderson.

1880

Carlton, Nyack, N. Y.

White.

5

Grace Wilder.

1881

Tailby, Wellessley, Mass.

Pink.

6

Fascination.

1882

Thorp, Pearl River, N. Y.

White.

6

J. Y. Murkland.

1883

< < it < < < i

Scarlet.

6

Portia.

1884

( ( « « 4 (

Scarlet.

7

Anna Webb.

1885

Fisher, Framingham, Mass.

Crimson

8

Ferd. Mangold.

1886

Simmons, Geneva, O.

Crimson

8

Tidal Wave.

1887

<« t i «

Pink.

9

L L- Lamborn.

1888

Swayne, Kennett Square, Pa.

White.

8

Silver Spray.

1889

Simmons, Geneva, O.

White.

10

Lizzie M'Gowen.

1890

McGowen, Orange, N. J.

White.

8

Daybreak.

1891

Simmons, Geneva, O.

Pink.

ii

Albertina.

1892

Dorner & Son Lafayette, Ind.

Pink.

9

Sweetbrier.

1893

Swayne, Kennett Square, Pa.

Pink.

12

Jubilee.

1894

Hill & Co , Richmond, Ind.

Scarlet.

13 Alaska.

1895

Chitty, Patterson, N. J.

White.

12 Flora Hill.

1896

Hill & Co., Richmond, Ind.

White.

3 Gov. Pingree.

1896

Breitmeyer, Detroit, Mich.

Wh'-var

*Astoria was the first carnation plant grown in America, from seed cross-fertilized in
France. Artifical fecundation was not practiced on carnationsin America for eleven years,
during which period not a carnation 18 recorded on the roster of merit. Charles Starr
was the first to practice the art, and in 1875 turned out the first carnation from seed, arti-
fically fertilized, in America, which has been followed by a swelling tide of
acquisitions.

136

AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

MAP
NO .

Name.

Year.

Where Originated and by Whom.

Color.

J4

Glacier.

1896

Ward, Queens, L. I., N. Y.

White.

ii

White Cloud.

1896

Dorner, Lafayette, Ind.

White.

ii

Wm. Scott.

1896

< i « d

Pink.

15

Bon Ton.

1897

Blake, Rockdale, Mass.

Scarlet.

H

New York.

1897

Ward, Queens, L. I., N. Y.

Crimson

16

Firefly.

I897

Hancock, Grand Haven, Mich

Scarlet.

7

Servia.

1897

S Fisher, Framingham, Mass.

White.

H

Gen. Maceo.

1898

Ward, Queens, L- I., N. Y.

Crimson

ii

J. H. Crane.

1898

Dorner & Son, Lafayette, Ind.

Scarlet.

*7

The Marquis.

1898

Marqnisee, Syracuse, N. Y.

Pink.

18

Irene.

1899

Crabb& Hunter, Grand Rapids

Pink.

19

Elm City.

1899

Kraus, New Haven, Conn.

White.

16

Gold Coin.

1899

Han cock & Son, Grand Haven

Yellow.

20

Geneve Lord.

1900

Weber & Son, Oakland, Md.

Pink.

I I

Morning Glory.

I9OO

Dorner & Son, Lafayette, Ind.

Pink.

14

Mrs. Lawson.

I9OO

Fisher, Ellis, Mass.

Pink.

H

Ethel Crocker.

1900

Sievers, California.

White.

22

Olympia..

I9OO

May, Summit, N. J.

Wh'-var

II

Lorn a.

1901

Dorner & Son, Lafayette, Ind.

White.

20

Egypt.

1901

Weber & Son, Oakland, Md.

Crimson

2O

Norway.

I9OI

« 41 « It <t

White.

I

Prosperity.

1901

Dailledouze Bros. Flatbush, L.I.

Wh'-var

H

Gov. Roosevelt.

1901

Ward, Queens, L. I., N. Y.

Crimson

21

Queen Louise.

I9OI

Dillon, Bloomsburg, Pa

White.

23

Estelle.

1901

Witterstaetter, Sedamsville, O.

Scarlet.

25

Mrs. Bird Coler.

I9OI

Molatsch, Brooklin, N. Y.

Scarlet.

27

Midnight Sun.

I9OI

Weaver, Bird-in Hand, Pa.

Crimson

27

Lancaster Pink

1901

< < < < « it

Pink.

26

Heilig's White.

I9O2

Heilig, Franklin, Pa.

White.

24

Cressbrook.

1902

Warburton, Fall River, Mass.

Pink.

23

Adonis.

1902

Witterstaetter, Sedamsville, O.

Scarlet.

28

E. A. Nelson.

I9O2

Indianapolis, Ind.

Pink.

CHAPTER XXVII-

NEW SPECIES OF CARNATION— DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF

DIANTHUS SUPERBA AND DIANTHUS SEMPERFLORENS

—THEY REQUIRE ESSENTIALLY DIFFERENT

TREATMENT.

FOR fifty years, hundreds of men have been cross-fertilizing
the best seedling carnations that have sprung from Alega-
tiere's origination, and they have obtained a species of car-
nation as distinct from Alegatiere's as it was from the species
that gave it birth. Structural difference is the basis of all
Classes, Orders, Genera and Species of the botanies. There is
not the wide gape of difference between species as some imagine.
Species do not spring into being full panoplied, like Juno from
the brain oi Jupiter. Darwin says: "varieties are incipient species
and require persistent congenial environment to take on the full
and stable character of a species." It may be difficult today to draw
detailed distinctions between the old and new species of carnations,
but time will survey their boundaries and drive the division
stakes. A species includes all individual plants that are alike in
roots, stems, leaves and in florescence. Martyn says that there are
as many species of plants as there are invariable structures in
plants. If La Puritie and Mrs. Lawson had been found growing
wild by Linnaeus, the plant wizzard of the world, he would have
classed them as different species.

La Puritie and Edwardsii were true specimens of the Semper-
florens 'type of the Alegatiere carnation. Their characters and
habits are well remembered by all the oldest florists. They grew
from 12 to 15 inches high, bore their stemless two-inch flowers in
profusion on small, tough, wiry, procumbently inclined stems.
They were cultivated on the dry-side, were small feeders, with web-
like anastomosing roots, were immunes to drouth, loved micaceous

138 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

and argillaceous soils, recovered quickly and without damage
from exhausting dry ness, revolted at manure foods, loved only
the chemical elements in the soil, were hardy above zero, and
florescent at 40 degrees night heat. They were wonderfully
productive of bloom, fifty buds and blooms often being counted
at a time on good specimens. The relative length of their
stamens and pistils indicated a pendulous flower and plant of
sprawling habit. Their flowers averaged twenty full petals, were
fertile in seeds, beautifully fringed and emitting a strong exhila-
rating clove fragrance.

Lawson, Roosevelt and Novelty are well defined types of a
new species of carnations. I will epitomize some of the distinctive
features of lyawson published by its originator in the Florists'
Exchange.

"Cuttings struck in March are best for early blooming;
in April for later blooming. Blooms bleach in the sun, must
be shaded early and deepened as season advances; must be
kept in a night temperature of 55 degrees to keep from bursting
its calyx; cuttings must be carried forward into 4-inch pots, no
check permitted to its growth, and should be mulched with pul-
verized sheep manure every two weeks from November to April."

This evolved type of carnations will grow 4 feet high and
support immense flowers 4 inches in diameter on great stiff stems
3 feet long, which have monstrous soft succulent nodes, sparce
foliage consisting of broad, thick, fleshy leaves. These plants have
large fibrous roots, are gross feeders on humus, demand much
water, circulating an immense volume of vegetable blood, and re-
quire a night temperature of 55 degrees, which is equal to an an-
nual average of 75 degrees, within 5 degrees of that of the equa-
tor; they cannot recover from a drouth. If their growth is arrested
their tide of vitality is never fully resumed.

Isotherms are nature's imperious method for differentiating the
Flora of the world into Orders, Genera and Species. Forty years
of artificial heat in winter has evolved a new species of carnation,
modified its esoteric nature to require more moisture, different
food, higher heat, a tropical vitality and a larger structure.

NEW SPECIES OF CARNATIONS. 139

By way of resume I present a more condensed argument
favoring the assumption that a new species of carnation has
originated from the Alegatiere type. Darwin, Huxley, and all
authorities worth considering, admit that varieties are the parents
of species; that species are the offspring of a single primitive
stock, and each is a natural or cultivated variety and may be arti-
ficially originated, conformed and established by selection and
environments.

"Special Creation" and "Transmutation" are the only two
hypotheses respecting the origin of species. One views their
origin as arising by a supernatural creative act. The other holds
that species are modifications of pre-existing species through
purely natural causes.

One of these theories assumes that a species is formed at once
and at the moment the male and female elements meet in the ovary.
The other, that species are initiated by varieties, and by natural
or artificial selection and by physical environments gradually
moulded into a separate class. And that classes or species are
known as being separate by morphology (structures), or physiology
(vitalities), or by both structure and vitality, and that these
constitute the boundary line between species.

For forty years, selection has been practiced with the species
of carnations of the La Puritie type, originated with Alegatiere
and conditioned with new environment, and a new species of car-
nation is the resultant.

Its morphological boundary lies between a procumbent plant
with a two-inch stemless pendent flower and an erect plant with
a four-inch flower on a three-foot stem. Its physiological bound-
ary lies between a plant whose nature is on the arid side of
culture, requiring little manurial nutriments and yielding its
florescence in a 45 degrees temperature; and a plant requiring 55
degrees of heat to afford its bloom, requiring much moisture and
manurial foods, impatient of all aridness, and circulating a great
volume of vegetable blood. Either the morphological or phys-
iological difference constitutes, according to authority, enough of
a divergence to install a new species.

140 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Dianthus superba embraces both structural and vital differ-
ence from Dianthus semperflorens. A new species is not per-
manent unless the conditions are persistent through which it was
evolved. Humanity gravitates towards the gutter which civiliz-
ing forces must ever antagonize. An evolved species of the
vegetable kingdom is ever gravitating towards ancestral types un-
less counterpoised by selection and culture. Accept or reject the
assumption of a new species of carnations, the fact remains, a
different treatment is already recognized for a carnation blowing a
4-inch corolla on a 3-foot stem and one blooming a 2 -inch flower
without a stem. Nature asserts with the majesty of command, a
different culture for the two varieties, which would not occur if
there were not a different vitality to culture. The cultivation
of neither kind will ever be abandoned. They fill different
niches in the Temple of Flora, but for scientific and commer-
cial purposes the two species should not be confounded. At present
a line, though tortuous and vague, would be: plants producing
flowers under 3 inches in diameter retain their present name,
Dianthus semperflorens', and plants producing flowers 3 inches
and over, normally receive the name, Dianthus superba.

This would recognize a botanical fact, make market reports
intelligent, set the pace for prices, suggest cultural treatment,
classify excellence and dignify the new origination with the as-
sumption of an appropriate name, hallowed with antiquity and
sanctioned by the centuries.

There were 36 new varieties of carnations registered and
introduced or disseminated in 1901. Giving the originator's de-
scription: six of these will blow 4-inch flowers; 20 bear flowers 3
inches and under; the calyxes of ten never burst. This list is
composed of 17 pink, 10 white, 5 scarlet, 2 yellow- variegated , i
white- variegated and i crimson. Of these, 7 originated in New
York, 7 in Pennsylvania, 4 in Illinois, 4 in Rhode Island, 4 in
Massachusetts, 4 in Indiana, 2 in Maryland, 2 in California, i in
New Jersey and i in Ohio. More new carnations have originated
in Pennsylvania than in any other state; nearly one hundred
varieties came from the vicinity of Kennett Square. None of this

AN OLD CARNATION ENGRAVING. 141

list were birthed outside of the carnation zone, nor has there
ever been any other valuable commercial carnations. As to the two
California introductions, see the chapters bearing on their nature.

The above engraving is a group of three carnations, Kd-
wardsii, white, red and variegated L,a Purities. It was obtained by
the late Charles Starr, and is the first engraving made from the
Alegatiere remontant type in this country, possibly in the world.
It was engraved about 1880, and has been in the writer's possession
fifteen years. Without accurate data as to the time it was made,
or the scale of size on which it was wrought, the inference is safe
that it dates back toward the era that carnations began to be
esteemed and cultivated in America. The cut represents flowers

142 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

two-thirds their natural size. The critical observer will notice the
long quill-like calyxes and the necessarily long claws of the petals,
lifting them well out of the cup before they broaden to burst the
caylx. This cut represents, as no description can, the early true
type of "Dianthus Semperflorens."

On the opposite page is a cut of "Sea Gull," (Furnished by
the courtesy of B. G. Hill) and is the exact size of this phenom-
enal product. It won the Silver Flagon prize over McGowen at
the Madison Square Exhibition in New York in the fall of 1891.
It became posessed by some occult devil and was never generally
disseminated, yet it was the herald of a "New Species," a
spectacular prophecy of the genus "Dianthus Superba," which is
now history.

SEA GULL.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE NEMESIS OF CARNATIONS -CAUSE, OF^ THEIR FLOWERS
"GOING TO SLEEP" -CAUSE OF THEIR CALYXES BURST-
ING—RUST A CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASE- STIGMO-
NOSE VS. BACTERIOSIS.

AN ideal carnation for pots would materially differ from those
grown on benches for commercial flowers. It would have
a compact base, canes of moderate length, given to a pro-
fusion of average size crown and terminal flowers on short stems.

The susceptible nature of carnations to the modifying influence
of the florists' art by parental selection and cross- pollenization
could doubtless in a few years obtain this type and overcome the
plant's dislike of root restraint in pots and develop a variety that

BREVITIES. 145

might be immensely popular as pot plants. The change required
would be chiefly structural, which features are most easily obtain-
ed by cross breeding. Carnationists who remember "Snowden"
will see in its form and habit a typical carnation pot plant.

Carnations propagated by cuttings in August carried through
winter in cold frames and planted out in early spring will bloom
from June until heavy frost.

^Esthetics would not have a carnation over three and a half to
four inches in diameter, on a stem stiff as a pike pole, nor with
petals quilled and formal as a dahlia; such qualities would rob
the flower of all its artistic grace.

The calyxes of carnations are being increased in capacity;
their fibrous structure is more compact and of slower change
than the vascular petals. If adaption by selection had directed it-
self to longer claws for the petals there would be fewer ruptured
calyxes today.

Nature carries relics of all its progressive achievement in the
nature and anatomy of every evolving species of plants and ani-
mals. In the physiology and structures of every variety of car-
nations there are vestigal homologues and heredities of every
progressive level the species has reached since Theophrastus ex-
claimed, Dio Anthos \ Among a thousand seedlings seventy-five
per cent will be reversals to some of these abandoned levels.

There is but one way that carnations can be successfully and
satisfactorily grown by the people. It is to procure September
struck plants from a carnation grower early in the spring; plant
them in the lawn as taste suggests; neatly stake them and they will
afford a profusion of boutonaires and flowers until heavy frosts,
and be as decorative and cheap as geraniums. Pages that have
been written on the popular cultivation of the carnation are con-
densed in the above ex-cathedra epigram.

146 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. McGowen are the best tested out-door
summer bloomers.

Thomas Dale of Canada, a competent judge, says Canada
cannot produce carnations equal to those grown in the States.

Mature carnation plants are not hardy in the temperate zone,
while their seedlings are, which shows how easily cultivated
strains of vegetation return to their normal type.

L/arge carnation flowers are obtained at the expense .of many
smaller ones. Nature is economical. When it is extravagant in
one direction it always economizes in another.

Dark pink carnations and those with solid colors have the
best constitutions, and are more florescent and cosmopolitan in
their habits, than the shaded and variegated kinds.

Quality in carnation flowers is the demand of its admirers,
and the slogan of successful growers. Fame and fortunes of
culturists have been built on "quality." Perseverence and close
attention to details in growing is the evangel of success and
quality.

The American continent has not yet given mankind as great
a variety of food and flowers as some others, but in it originated
the great food staple of Indian corn, and the potato. It has
developed in Dianthus Superba, the loftiest symbol of poetry and
the potato the most substantial prose of life.

The great commercial and vital differences between pinks
with their marvelous single crops of multitudinous flowers, in
July and August, and carnations, are: the immense short-lived
crop of bloom with pinks is evenly distributed through the life of
carnations from October to July and the latter kindly respond to
the sorcery of artificial heat, which is death to pinks.

BREVITIES. 147

In 1880 there was but one floral establishment in America;
in 1820, 4; 1830, n; 1840, 36; 1850, 76; 1860, 112. In 1900, 10,-
ooo that rise to a high grade of commercial dignity, or fully 15,000
all considered.

The production of infertile carnation flowers is but a phase
of plant foliation. The foliage is the type, the petals in the
corolla are the antitype of the foliage, as is the spathe of the anti-
type of that plant's leaf.

It has been discovered that sulphur, and possibly other cheap
chemicals are often mixed with bales of tobacco stems to preserve
their fresh appearance; burning such stems is injurious to plants
and ruinous to flowers.

The secretary of the Agricultural Department estimates that
there are $12,500,000 worth of flowers sold each year in the
United States, and one-third of this vast sum is realized from the
sale of more than 100,000,000 carnation blooms.

There never has been a rust-proof carnation. Those specimens
that have been esteemed so, were merely plants, or batches, that
by accident escaped Thrips, Red Spider, Greenfly and other
puncturing pests to lesion their epidermis, with culture spot in
which the spores of rust could vegetate.

The cause of carnations going to sleep at early and unusual
hours has been a source of much perplexity. Carnation petals are
vascular and sensitively organized. Their mission is brief and to
dazzle by glare. They begin to wilt the instant fertilization is ef-
fected. Many gases are quickly poisonous to them; they soon per-
ish if cut before they mature; they shrivel in a dry atmosphere if
developed in a wet one; they die if taken from an ice refrigerator
into the warm sun. Grown in normal conditions, cut at the
proper time, and kept in congenial environments, carnation flow-
ers may be merchantable for nearly three weeks.

148 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Every grower, who buys a new carnation, buys a new char-
acter that imperiously demands conditions and yields none.

At the last meet of the Peripatetic Club of Dianthic Oratory,
r de Us of Kllis won its own gold medal. An unnamed in-
mate of Cottage Garden carried back to the jewel box the "Holy
Grail" from whence it came. The pro-nomen of Hector of San
Juan Hill, and Colorado coyotes won easy honors for the fame of
Queens.

A good commercial solid yellow carnation has never yet
been introduced. They have been so unprofitable that many
growers do not cultivate them, but use some of the yellow-varie-
gated kinds as a substitute. In fact, a pure yellow carnation has
several unmistakable features of a divergent species.

The commerce during the fall of field-grown carnation plants
is very great. The}7 are safely and conveniently shipped any
distance by wrapping their roots with what earth that may adhere,
in moist moss and setting them erect in a box half the height
of the plants and protecting the tops by an open frame nailed to
the box. The plants should be moderately close. If crowded and
long confined they will heat and suffer damage.

Since Chas. Starr, hardy pinks have had an enthusiastic
champion in C. Eisele of Philadelphia. Mr. Eisele has crossed the
remontant carnation with the Marguerites and produced some mag-
nificent hybrids, Jupiter, light pink; Murcury, scarlet; Minerva,
deep pink; Neptune, magenta violet; Saturn, crimson; Uranus;
maroon; Venus, white; Vulcan, red; and a number of others. Mr.
Eisele is also noted for his success in blooming the remontant
carnation during summer months. His system consists in striking
cuttings the first ot October, carrying them in three-inch pots, in
a dry bottom cold frame through the winter, and transplanting in
the open, as soon as frost is out of the ground. They begin to
bloom the first of July and continue until late in the fall.

BREVITIES. 149

There is a tireless strain for large carnations with stiff stems.
There is an aesthetic meridian for size somewhere between a
species of carnation called micro petalon^ because it requires a
microscope to see its petals, and a corolla the size of a sunflower.
Good taste draws the line on a three-inch flower on a stem pen-
dant with grace.

In this work, the treatment of the La Puritie type of carnation
is chiefly considered. The habits arid culture of a new evolving
type of carnation are quite different. The mean annual temperature
required by the two species are essentially unlike. Isotherms
are nature's sovereign methods for diversifying species.

It is hard to settle the outlines of a perfect carnation flower.
There is an enduring contour of beauty if quixotic taste could
reach it. That the centre of the flower should be well built up,
approaching a hemisphere with petals moderately fringed and
standing at right angles with the stem, seems to meet the present
requirement of taste and grace.

The following scale of points in a carnation flower has been
discussed by some men interested in carnations It is immaterial
whether their standard of comparison is real or ideal. The signifi-
cance of the scale resides in the relative importance of the struc-
tural features of a carnation's corolla, not in the opinion of a few
or their aspirations for the beautiful according to their pro-
crustean standard.

Color 25

Size 20

Calyx 5

Stem 20

Substance 10

Form 15

Fragrance 5

Total 100

150 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Mr. Hill, after his tour of inspecting carnations in Europe,
says: "They know but little about blooming carnations in Eng-
land; as far as I could learn it was only practiced by a few ama-
teur florists and from the American standpoint was anything but
a success."

It is of interest to those possessing, or proposing the posses-
sion of an area of glass for growing carnations, to know of the
Florists' Hail Association. The details of this insurance organi-
zation has been under the secretaryship of Mr. Ksler since it was
started in 1888, which is strong testimony of his efficiency. One
of his reports shows the growth and favor with which it is re-
ceived.

Year. Glass Insured. Reserve Fund.

1888 811,951 Square feet $ 491.23

1889 1,327,240 " 743-°7

1890 2,132,118 1,322.46

1891 3,104,583 1,855.84

1892 4,078,725 2,542,13

1893 4,830,780 3,107.12

1894 6,653,695 3.^39-55

1895 7,489,312 4,094-39

1896... 8,003,820 4,62177

1897 10,097,209 5»2I5-26

1898 10,189,097 5,862.48

1899 11,209,865 " 6,649.25

Secretary I. C. Esler, of the Association says: "On the ist
day of August, 1901, it had 1020 members, insured 14,541,382
square feet of glass; paid $5,328 55 for losses during the year;
total receipts for the year, $10,660 30; and had on hand at the end
of the fiscal year, $8,759.95 available as an emergency fund.

Glass belonging to members of the Association to the extent
of 70,390 feet was broken during the year ending Aug. i, 1901;
and since its organization in June 1887, it has paid 510 losses, in-
volving all expenditures, of over $45,000. Of 82 losses by hail in
1900-1, all but 19 were in the months of June and July.

BREVITIES. 151

The edges of the petals of carnation flower leaves may be
serrated, indented, fringed or plain, or possess all degrees of
serrulations from a deeply cut, coarse fringe to a simple undeco-
rated border.

Mrs. E. A. Nelson, on page 79, and Alba Superba, on page
133, are fairly good specimens of the last two types. The cuts on
the adjoining page represent the serrated and indented classes of
leaves. These varied adornments of the rims of carnation petals
are the result of the conflicting play of hereditary forces. The
ancestors of carnations were noted for their petals being deeply
cut and fantastically fimbriated.

B. T. Galoway, United States Department of Agriculture,
with census data of 1900 before him, estimates the area of green-
house glass in America at 30,000,000 square feet, (the type, by
mistake, in a former page says 300,000,000), the number of com-
mercial floral establishments at 10,000, exclusive of thousands of
small glass structures in which artificial heat is employed. He
epitomises deductions from the above as follows:

"The estimated value of the establishments in this country,
including houses, boilers, and all fixtures, is placed at 50 cents
for each square foot of glass, or $11,250,000 in all. The income
of the producer will average 50 cents per square foot annually, or
$11,250,000, and double that amount when viewed from the
standpoint of the retailer. Considering the amount from the re-
tailer's standpoint, therefore, the total value of the annual output
is $22,500,000 or $i for each square foot of glass.

"It is estimated that the retail value of cut flowers sold
annually is $12,500,000, the estimated apportionment of the sum
being, for —

Roses $6,000,000

Carnations 4,000,000

Violets 750,000

Chrysanthemums 500,000

Miscellaneous flowers, in-
cluding lilies, etc 1,250,000

"Estimating the average retail value of roses, carnations and
violets at $6, $4 and $i per hundred, respectively, the total num-

152 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

her of each sold annually, based on the above values, would be, of —

Roses 100,000,000

Carnations 100,000,000

Violets 75,000,000

Total 275,000,000

"The retail value of the plants sold is placed at $10,000,000.
Taking the plant trade as a whole and the country in the aggre-
gate, the average-sized pot used is estimated to be 3 inches, and
the average retail price 10 cents per pot This means that there
are no less thari 100,000,000 plants sold every year.

To handle this business in its entirety requires probably an
average of not less than one man for every 1,500 square feet of
glass, or 20,000 men.

"My carnations burst more than usual. What's the matter?"
The calyxes of carnations are a fibrous fabric, easily torn length-
wine and are developed before the petals, which are vascular and
of. rapid growth, requiring an active circulation and the stimulus
of heat and light to lengthen their claws and lift them out of
their calyxes formed of fibers, feebly joined, and easily ruptured.

Nothing will dignify the floral profession more than a gen-
eral knowledge of botany. Every man that aspires to be a florist
should understand the general history of the plants he grows,
their anatomy, physiology and pathology. Florists need not
be botanists in the technical sense of the term. If they were, they
would likely not be practical florists. The florist deals in aesthetics,
his stock in trade are the "Smiles ot Nature," his humble vocation
keeps him sordid, he is compelled to rake muck piles for grains
of gold, and to measure a good carnation by the amount of money
it can make him.

Some varieties of carnations produce flowers with thin and
feebly organized petals which soon wilt after they are cut. There
has been no system devised to scale the keeping qualities of
a carnations bloom, nor does this feature in new carnations enter
into the roster of their many alleged vices or virtues.

BREVITIES. 153

The greatest draft on the life forces of carnation plants is at
their blooming period. They are then crystallizing precious protein
compounds in their seeds, as food for embryonic plants. It is
then they need nourishing and easily assimilated plant food.

The petals of a carnation flower may be shaded, flaked,
penciled, or dotted. They may have plain borders or be notched,
serrated or fringed. These forms and conditions are differentia-
tions of the ancestral types, modified by hereditary influence.

The first flowers of some seedlings have unruptured and per-
fect calyxes; after that they may uniformly burst. This peculiarity
extends to the first, second and third generations of the life of the
same variety. The structural indices of a non-bursting carna-
tion flower lie in the length of the claws which lift the petals
out of the calyx before they broaden and mature.

There is a renewed effort to grow American carnations in the
foggy climate of old England. The following carnations of
American origin are now offered by English growers; G. H. Crane,
Maud Adams, Melba, Flora Hill, Triumph, Bridesmaid, Day-
break, Victor, Mrs. McGowen, Bon Ton, Evelina, Lily Dean,
Mayor Pingree, Mrs. James Dean, Painted Lady, Empress, Mrs.
Geo. M. Bradt and White Cloud. The favorites so far appear to
be Flora Hill and White Cloud.

It would be anomalous for a broad petal to be transposed
from the leaf of a La Puritie carnation one-sixteenth of an inch
wide; but not strange, as has been noticed, for petals one-and-a-
half inches wide to be the antitype of leaves on the same plant
one-half inch across, and the law of proportion carried out in the
size of the plant and its corolla. There never will be four-inch
carnation flowers on Alegatiere's La Puritie species until nature
plays a vaudeville with species and the law of proportion.

154 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Small carnation plants from the field, carried in 5-inch pots in
a good cold frame through the winter, make magnificent blooming
pot plants for spring sales.

Carnation cuttings should be inserted in the sand deep
enough and made sufficiently firm to enable them to maintain
vigorously a vertical position.

Whither conditions favoring the best production of bloom in
carnation plants are the ones that afford the best cuttings is a ques-
tion of some uncertainty. I think the temperature too high and
the nutrient stimuli too great to yield a first class cutting from
the true semperflorens type of carnation plants, probably not for
its new and cognate species. But plants conditioned to produce
bloom are now accepted as proper to afford cuttings and their
yield is made secondary to the crop of flowers.

The profits of growing carnation flowers depend on the
management of the plants and the market to be reached. It is safe
to estimate that carnation plants, through the season, will average
twenty flowers each; ten square feet of glass will cover one hun-
dred plants, including alleys. The price of the flowers through the
season will average, in any market, ten dollars per thousand.
High grade fancy flowers, in affluent markets, have command-
ed from sixty to one hundred dollars per thousand.

" Practical Floriculture '," published in 1868, states that colored
carnations sold in the New York market then for twenty dollars
per thousand and whites for forty dollars The flowers then pro-
duced were without stems and ranged from one to two inches in
diameter. The excellent trade papers now published, with
-the daily price circulars from wholesale dealers, keep the
producers in constant touch with the reigning prices of carnation
flowers. The season, quality, and market, control the price of
the carnation grower's product.

BREVITIES. 155

It is an irrevocable law -of nature, and demonstrated by ex-
perience, that it requires a definite number of units of heat, light
and moisture for any vegetable organism to reach maturity, and
round the object of its existence. One great desire of carnation
growers is to obtain carnation flowers earlier in the season than
the plants have commonly afforded them. If the above is a
sound law in vegetable physiology, does it not contain a solution
of the problem of early carnation flowers ? How is it possible for
a carnation starting its life in February or March, and carried on
any lines approximating the nature of the plant, to receive the
number of units of heat and light that nature could afford it dur-
ing its vegetative season between Maich and November?

The flowering, or reproductive, period of its life is well under-
stood. It is its vegetative era that embodies the rebus for early
flowers. Growing carnations under glass, with greater or less
success, is a supremely abnormal and artificial method. If the car-
nation's life was started in August or September and carried health-
fully forward with approximately normal environments, would
it not have time to husband the units required for the puberty
of its vegetative life, and start with flowers correspondingly earlier
on its reproductive era ? If it would not, the assumed law is at
fault, for nature makes no mistakes. If the law is sound, a ma-
tured biennial carnation plant could be benched the first of July,
ready to start on its lyric of life begetments of which flowers are
the proem and embryos in seed the appendix.

A ripened carnation plant is one that has finished the first
season's growth, elaborated itsjuices,crystalizedand deposited in its
medulla and the interstices of its tissues the protein compounds to
sustain a coming life fraught with the loftiest purpose of it being.
The desire and destiny with man is to live beyond the grave. The
object and purpose of a plant is to survive beyond its limit of life,
in embryonic seeds.

The puberty of a biennial carnation plant is the somnolent
period, the coma of winter's cold, the change in its vital functions
from vegetative to reproductive forces, between existing and persist-

156 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

ing, between the yesterday and the tomorrow of life. (It is then
a ripened plant. All fruits are but ripened pistils.)

The stems of the plant are then firm and compact; its nodes are
solid, almost woody; leaves tough and leathery: stems erect, cir-
culating but little sap; it has stopped growing and is fortifying for
the swoon of winter. It should then be lifted and benched, it
matters not if the soil is dust, without a particle of dirt to the
roots; the thermometer 90 degrees in the shade, with a little
moisture the plant will scarcely flag. It has then rounded the
first epoch of its life, vitality is torpid, heretofore it has lived to
grow, hereafter it will live to persist. The same conditions
apply to all biennials.

This fact crystallizes in itself all nebulous theories and ex-
periences of carnation growers about early and late lifting, in
warm or cool, in wet or dry weather. The principle is as inexor-
able as the law of nature governing biennial life.

There has existed in America about 1000 named carnations
since the first were introduced in 1864; about 200 of this number
have been importations from Europe and California. It is sense-
less history to cumber records with the names of worthless and
extinct carnations.

There are two financial features in growing carnations. One
is for the production of their bloom, the other is for the "pips" and
rooted cuttings the crop may afford. Most growers combine both
features, and all growers endeavor to root enough cuttings to
supply their own demand for plants.

There are statements in an old work called "Flori Historica,"
published in 1829, that carnations then had perfect calyxes, long
stems, and bore three and a half-inch flowers. They must have
been a different carnation from the species now known by that
name, for the kind in cultivation now did not originate until
thirty years after that work was printed.

BREVITIES. 157

Syringing with bordeaux mixture discolors the foliage of
carnations.

To understand the physiology of a carnation's life is to
stand on the ultimate in growing it.

Carnations are being bred toward strong canes and away from
fragrance and productiveness of bloom.

Cultivate carnations in the field after each rain and between
rains. Cultivation is a substitute for rain.

Scrupulous cleanliness and close attention to all the details
in growing carnation will make success a certainty.

A carnation grower, with the description given of the dis-
eases in Chapter XX, and a dollar and a half microscope, can
easily determine the character of any trouble that affects his
plants.

Every carnation grower should have hygrometers, and ther-
mometers in his houses, and a microscope in his pocket. These
instruments ring the bells when the Red Spider, frigidity, and
disease knock at the door.

The best varieties of carnations {Diantkus Semperflorens} is
the loftiest evolution of the little five-petaled pink, mentioned by
Theophrastus two thousand years ago. Its main development
has been in the last fifty years. The science of botany demon-
strated the practicability of artificial hybridization, and cross-fertil-
ization, by which the carnation in the last forty years has reached
an evolvement that the slow and uncertain processes of nature
would not have accomplished in as many centuries.

158 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

The Wisconsin College of Agriculture has experimented on
watering plants with water at 32 degrees and 75 degrees Fahr. and
finds no perceptible difference in the effect on the plants, whether
they were in or out of doors.

The statement is made with some assurance that out of 4720
kinds of flowers in Kurope only 420 have pleasant odors. Per-
fume differs with different persons, and fragrance was not originat-
ed to please the olfactories of man as much as this sense in insects.

The perpetual type of carnation differs from its parental
border species by continually remounting itself with flowers in
response to the stimuli of artificial heat, but will not produce
more flowers during eight months of its flowering period than its
ancestors did, and does, in six or eight weeks. The carnation
merely trails glory through a longer duration and through a
period of the year in which flowers are more appreciated.

Sterilizing the soil on greenhouse benches is now claiming
considerable attenlion. The Massachusetts Experiment Station
has devised a system of pipes under the benches through which
steam can be turned and a heat of 200 degrees quickly obtained
in the soil. It is claimed that highly heated soil produces better
crops, converts elements in the soil into plant food, besides destroy-
ing latent eggs, worms, pupus, spores and germs of the nematodes.

There are many instances when benched carnations need an
antidote for pests when cloudy damp weather would forbid its
application in liquid form. "Hammond's Slug Shot" can be used
as a dry powder, and spread over plants with a dry duster or blower,
and is found effective. This composite powder can also be ap-
plied in liquid form, through a sprayer or pump. It is obtained
from seedmen throughout the States, put up in perforated screw-
top canisters for convenient and immediate use.

CARNATION liHtilLia'S WHITE,'*

169

HEIUG'S WHITE.

This carnation originated with P. Heilig of Franklin, Pa., in 1899, and is not
yet disseminated.

160 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

If it were not for usurping the prophetic functions of Isaiah,
I would name a carnation destined to sound a note on the key
board of progress that has not yet been heard, but prophecy is al-
ways doubtful until it becomes history.

Mutilation by disbudding is not a factor in evolving carna-
tion flowers with longer stems. Emasculation is not transmissi-
ble. No feature in carnations has developed more rapidly than
the length of the flower stems. It ranges in 40 years from a flower
without a stem to one on a three-foot stem. The drawing nature
of glass has powerfully abetted selection in evolving this feature.

The calyx is the outer series or whorl of floral leaves. Or-
ganology has failed to discover the true functions for either the
calyx or petals of a flower. The calyx is not an essential part of
a flower. In poppies and mayapples it falls off when the flower
begins to open, and is entirely absent in the lily, tulip, and flowers
of many forest trees.

Since the introduction and cultivation of carnations in Amer-
ica the calyx part of its flowering mechanism has been very de-
fective. The joined edges of its sepals have been disproportion-
ally weak and ruptured from the pressure of the petals within; the
petals falling down between the torn edges, destroying all the
beauty and value of the flower. It is thought that a disproportion-
ate amount of moisture adds to the turgescence of the petals and
aggravates the lesion, while ventilation and sunshine strengthen
the sutures of the sepals and lessen the difficulty.

Beyond these two insufficient therapeutic suggestions no
remedy has been discovered, or scientific cause assigned for car-
nations rupturing their calyxes. If all artificial aid was with-
drawn from carnations, as they now exist, a cataclysm of extinc-
tion would immediately follow. All that would soon remain
would be a five-petaled pink. The first step in their devolution
would be a reduction of the number of their petals and the restor-

BREVITIES. 161

ation of more vigorous organs of reproduction. The compara-
tively monstrous calyx which has been slowly developing for
forty years would be the last to follow in the wake of their degra-
dation, as it was the last to emerge and conform to an enlarged
corolla. Nature's supreme concern is the continued life of a
species. If one mode, or process of life continuance is lost, nature
instinctively substitutes some other mode for self continuance.

Carnations are a horticultural form of the primitive Dianthus
Caryophillus. Their flowers are sterilized by the artificial multi-
plication of their petals. Nature facilitates their continuance by
dis-articulations, or easily rooted cuttings. This process was
deemed impossible before Alegatiere's time and is not yet prac-
ticed in Europe.

There is a pseudomorphous unlining of the inner series or
whorls of floral leaves. The multiplication of the petals is at the
expense of the fertile stamens and pistils. This modification ob-
tained by selective breeding has not so easily affected the calyx
or outer whorl. The calyx was not quickly involved in the
evolutionary line taken by other parts of the carnation flower.
It made a slower deflection from its primal type.

The natural and primitive capacity of a tubular carnation
calyx was to hold only the long slender claws of five petals.
Artificial development of the flower demanded of it a capacity to
hold the broad fleshy leaves, and short thick claws of fifty petals.
As an organ, the calyx was not in the evolutionary swim with
other parts of the flower. The calyx did not keep synchronal step
with the unfoldment of the petals.

This disproportionate development of the different whorls of
floral leaves is not unusual in flowers. The sepals are augmented
in the ranunculus; stamens in the cactus; and the pistils in the
wild buttercup, and the petals in the carnations. Carnations'
calyxes rupture at the seam of union between the sepals. The
leaf is a primal organ of a plant, the sepals of the calyx are
slightly modified leaves of the plant, retaining the texture, chloro-
phyl, etc., of the true leaf, hence a greater resistance to change, a

162 AMERICAN CARNATION CtJLTtlRE.

more stable anchorage to the type of this primal organ of plant-
life than that possessed by the pscudo-morphous petals.

The structure of the petals of a flower is frail and degenerate,
their function is not known, they are not an essential feature of a
flower's purpose. It is not strange that such tissues in a flower
should be the first and fastest to yield to the blandishments of high
culture. Herein resides the cause of ruptured calyxes in carna-
tions. [The only radical cure for it is to breed poly-petalous
corollas back toward their five-petaled ancestors, or breed the
capacity of the calyxes forward for a fifty petaled corolla. The
first will not be done, the last is being done. '.*

Nature stopped creative acts in the organic world long ago.
All her efforts are now directed to modifying organs to meet new
requirements. Nature never creates new organs, but modifies old
ones. The process of change has been for forty years, slowly
modifying a tubular calyx into a bell-shaped calyx in carnations, to
meet requirements, without bursting, a plethoric corolla, which
long antedated the requirement. This result is nearly accomplish-
ed, half the introductions of 1900 and 1901 showing the bell-shaped
type of calyxes already attained. A decade back, it could not be
said that a single variety of carnations was exempt from ruinous
ruptures. Now it can be said many kinds are not troubled with
objectionable lesions, and a few are absolutely free from the fault.

Prof. Authur called the rust disease, "Bacterium Dianthi,"
or Bacteriosis. Bacteriosis implies a disease of carnations caused
by bacteria. Prof. Woods insists that the "Rust disease" is not
caused by bacteria, but by the punctures of aphides and other .sap
sucking insects. Therefore, the term "Bacteriosis" is not expres-
sive of facts and should be substituted by the term "Stigrno-
nose," meaning a disease caused by punctures or piercings.

From my point of view the argument is with Woods, rather
than Authur, neither of whom fully embraces the whole bound-
aries of the rust trouble. Be the germ of Uromyces caryophillus
a bacterium or a fungus, whether it enters the structure of the car-

BREVITIES. 163

nation plant through its stomas, or through insect piercings, it
quickly ceases to be a local and becomes a constitutional disease.
If mosquitoes distribute the germs of yellow fever, aphides can
carry and inoculate plants with the germs of rust. Whether they
do or do not, it is patent to observing carnation growers that their
vaccinating punctures are followed with the pathology of "Rust."
Rust is no more a local disease than is scrofula. The animal
may have a scrofulous diathesis, the plant a rust diathesis. A
scrofulous gland may be cut out or a joint amputated, and it in
nowise disturbs the constitutional disease. Diseased leaves on
a rust plant may be picked off as fast as they appear, and it in
nowise affects the fatal progress of the disease after it becomes
constitutional.

The rapidity with which this micro-organism multiplies itself
is shown by the following extract from bulletin 59 of the A. E«
Station, Purdue University.

"We may conclude from these observations that under good
conditions for growth an individual of Bacterium Dianthi may be-
come two within a half hour, and these two increase to four in
the second half hour, and so on. At this rate there would be
sixteen at the end of two hours, sixty- four at the end of three
hours, 256 at the end of four hours, over sixteen million at the
end of twelve hours and over 280 billions at the end of one day.
Is it any wonder that a few germs placed in a test tube culture
will make it turbid within twenty- four hours? Although the
individual bacteria are very minute, requiring 1500 of them
placed side by side to extend the sixteenth of an inch, yet the 280
billions that may be formed from one germ within a day represent
no insignificant bulk. They would in fact occupy fully a cubic
inch of space. As it takes the material of three or four fluid cul-
tures to fill a cubic inch, it is evident that even under the favor-
able condition of artificial cultivation the food supply soon be-
comes inadequate to keep up a maximum rate of growth."

164 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

THE PRINCIPLE BOTANICAL PARTS OF A CARNA-
TION FLOWER CONSIST OF A

Peduncle. — Stem that supports the flower.
Receptacle. — Upper end of the peduncle.
Calyx. — The outer covering of the flower.
Bract. — Support around the base of the calyx.
Corolla, — The inner part of a flower, composed of petals.
Petal. — Leaf of the blossom.
Stamen. — Male organ in center of the blossom.
Anther — The enlarged end of the stamen, containing the
pollen.

Pollen. — The fertilizing dust on the anther.

Filament. — The stem of the stamen.

Pistil. — Female organ in the center of the blossom.

Stigma. — Enlarged end of the pistil which receives the
pollen.

Style. — The cylindrical portion of the pistil of a plant.
Ovary. — The vessel that contains the unripe seed.
Pericarp. — The ripened ovary of a plant.
Valves. — Parts or sections of the pericarp.
Seed. — Rudiments of a new plant.

CHAPTER XXIX.

POPULAR CULTIVATION OF CARNATION— CARNATIONS GROWN
AT HOME FOR BOUTONNIERES, LAWN ADORN-
MENTS AND TABLE DECORATIONS.

THERE are many who find recreation and delight in grow-
ing their own flowers, who possess ample means to pur-
chase them. There is something strangely fascinating in
a dormant seed bursting into green life under the skill of our own
fingers and in continuing that life through the marvelous media
of cuttings manipulated by our own judgment. It is a seance
with the occult in nature and a manifestations of her mysterious
laws governing life.

It is for those who love and practice floriculture for its in-
herent witchery and their own amusement that I write this chap-
ter.

The carnation pink is the most popular flower now grown,
not excepting the rose.

It is quite a mistake to think that carnations can only be
successfully grown in greenhouses. In fact, they are not, strict-
ly a greenhouse plant. The species is a native of cold climates,
and its best health is maintained in a low temperature. It is a
biennial and when lifted on greenhouse benches responds readily
to heat and serves out its second year's existence in winter
blooming.

This is the reason it is so popular with florists. Hundreds of
acres of glass are now devoted to its cultivation in America.

The carnation is hardy at any temperature above zero. It
flourishes in a wide range of temperature, but draws the line of
growth at eighty degrees as quickly as it d>>es at forty degrees of
heat. The carnation plant is far healthier than the rose and is
not nearly as capricious in its habits.

166 AMEBICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

The rose is a perennial plant, a carnation is a biennial; and
the greatest cause of failure in growing the latter is in not recog-
nizing this fact. After a carnation has served its two seasons of
life it is absolutely useless and should be at once discarded.

People who will not regard this point in the nature of the
carnation carry along a half alive plant only for it to end in the
absolute death of the plant. Then they will decry their ill-luck.

There is no dispute as to the desire of the people for this ar-
tistic flower. It embraces all colors— crimson, scarlet, pink,
white and yellow and their various shades. It has an exhilara-
ting clove fragrance, unequaled by any other flower. It- has un-
rivalled symmetry, beauty, and is one of the most lasting flowers
that is grown.

For winter bloom if plants must be kept in residences, you
can not expect to be as successful as if they were kept in a green-
house.

The unfavorable conditions of the sitting room for carnation
plants are the dry atmosphere and deficient light. Persons who
have bay- widows may, to some extent, modify these conditions
and those who possess the luxury of an adjoining conservatory
can do so still more fully.

Independent of house culture there are thousands of people
who would be satisfied with carnation growing, if they could
raise these * 'smiles of nature" from the middle of June until long
after the first moderate frosts. This is as easily done as it is to
raise any other flower of merit.

There are no plants of as easy culture or that yield as much
pleasure for the labor bestowed on them.

There are but few persons who do not love flowers, and who
do not love to decorate their homes by growing them and would
like to grow carnations instinct with life and fragrant with the
spices of the south-land among them if it were possible.

It is not only possible, but easily attainable, if a few simple
rules are observed. Kvery one attempting to grow carnations
must remember they are biennials, that it is their nature to live

CARNATIONS GROWN AT HOME. 167

but two seasons, interrupted by a winter season of rest, after
which their usefulness is gone.

I now suppose we are going to grow a few carnations for
self-gratification and home adornment. A supply must be obtain-
ed, and there are only two ways to do so; one to buy a package of
carnation seeds and germinate them. This is not practical. The
seed is expensive whether home-grown or imported. A good va-
riety will cost fifty cents a package, or about a penny a seed. The
germination of these seeds is difficult under such conditions as
exist about a cottage home. The plants at first are delicate and
easily destroyed, and it takes all of the first season, if you are suc-
cessful with your seed, to grow the plants to the blooming stage;
then they have to be carried through the winter in the bay win-
dow or a fight cellar, for planting out in the spring.

But after all this trouble, there is still a more serious trouble.
Carnations do not come true from seed. You have no possible
means of knowing what color you are going to get, or whether
your crop of flowers will possess any merit at all, as compared
with the fine varieties now in cultivation. Many of your seed-
lings will have single flowers, no matter how much they cost, or
how fine a strain they are claimed to be.

It is estimated that florists grow 10,000 seedlings annually,
and out of this vast number there are not, on an average, over ten
new carnations a year put upon the market as beiny; better than,
or as good as existing kinds. If you purpose to grow a few car-
nations, you want good ones. You must now see there is no hope
of obtaining them from seed.

Your next and only source of first supply is from some pro-
fessional carnation grower. When a fine carnation is obtained
from seed, the variety is perpetuated by cuttings. Large carna-
tion growers thus continue the kinds by the tens of thousands.
They then know in advance the color and character of the flower
they desire to have, and are familiar with the habits and peculi-
arities of the plants they obtain.

There are seven primary divisions of colors in carnations,
suggested by the writer, twenty years ago, and now generally ac-

168 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

cepted, viz: Crimson, scarlet, pink, white, yellow, white-varie-
gated and yellow-variegated.

Out of this list of colors select those you prefer and send your
order for the same to a reliable carnation-growirfg florist.

I will give you later on the name of the varieties of each
of the foregoing classes, which I deem best adapted for growing
at home by amateurs.

After you receive your plants, say about the first of May,
plant them out in any ordinary garden soil, from twelve to fifteen
inches apart, each way. They will be rooted cuttings from four
to six inches long and will be comparatively hardy. Keep them
well cultivated through the entire season and neatly staked.

These rooted plants to bloom early, say by the ist or i5th
of June; the cuttings must have been taken from the parent
plants early, say October or November of the previous fall.

Carnation growers always have such on hand for growing
flowers for their own wants early, out of doors.

Now, after you have invested in the first purchase of plants,
you doubtless would like to know how to continue your stock
without the expense of repeating your purchase and with the inter-
est of being your own propagator.

In October take cuttings off your growing plants. Side
shoots are better than the main stem — slips from three to four
inches long. Use a sharp knife, then stick them in clean sand,
filled in a box three or four inches deep, set the box under the
shade of a tree or on the north side of the house, water them well
and frequently, and from fifty to seventy-five per cent of your
cuttings will root. Florists, with more favorable conditions, ex-
pect to strike from ninety to one hundred per cent of their cut-
tings.

Another mode of continuing your stock is by layering. Take
a stem of the number that will stool up from the crown of your
plant, slit it about half off, bend it to the earth, peg it down with a
twig or stick, and cover over the incised part with moist earth,
and it will take root. This plan was at first pursued in this
country, and is largely continued in Europe. It is called layer-

CARNATIONS GROWN AT HOME. 169

ing. The rooted layers will bloom very early the following sea-
son. When well rooted, they, as well as the rooted cuttings,
should be 'potted in three or four inch pots, and carried through
the winter in a semi-dormant state, in the cellar near a window,
comparatively dry, but not killing dry. There is a vast differ-
ence between those two conditions of the soil, which degree can-
not be described, but common sense must determine.

In the spring, from the 15 of April to the first of May, they
should be transplanted in the border for blooming. This is the
routine of cultivation that must be pursued. After a carnation
plant has bloomed out doors, or in the house one season it is
worthless; it has lived its life and by nature served its purpose
and no attempt should be made to continue its useless existence.

I endeavor to give the plainest and most practical directions
for the culture of carnations — my purpose being to show how they
may be grown by anyone who is willing to devote a little time
and trouble to their care.

Some kinds of carnations are hardier than others, some bloom
earlier in the season than others, some develop their flowers best
under glass, or in a greenhouse, others bloom grandly in their
open borders. I will give a list of colors and kinds which are
best suited for open cultivation, at the homes of those who choose
to try them.

Out of the entire list of white carnations there is not one
whose reputation for out-door growth is so well established as is
that of Mrs. Fisher. This white variety is grown almost exclu-
sively by florists for their open air carnation bloom. Its flowers
are a pure white, large and deliciously fragrant. One can not do
better than to grow it.

For pinks procure Diaz Albertina, Daybreak, Wm. Scott and
Rose Queen. In carmine, select Tidal Wave; scarlet, Portia;
white-variegated, Helen Keller and Goldfinch. In the pure yel-
lows there is but little choice— Gold Nugget and Golden Triumph,
and these are not very meritorious.

The two or three kinds of carnations which experience has
proven to do the best in pots in the window of the sitting room

170 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

during winter months are Alaska, white; and Winter Cheer, rich
vermillion.

I have not given a large list to select from — to do so would
only tend to confuse. Neither have I mentioned the names of any
of recent introductions because their reputation for out-door
blooming is not yet well established. If an amateur desires a
brief list on which rests the greatest expectation of carnation ex-
perts, let him order Cressbrook, Egypt, Norway, Mrs. Nelson,
Estelle, Genevieve I,ord, Queen Louise, Prosperity, Alba Superba,
Mrs. Lawson, Mrs. Dean, and Marquis. The color, records, de-
scriptions and half-tones of these and other choice varieties may be
found on the pages of AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

Carnation plants when received from the florist should be
neatly and firmly planted in the border, and snugly staked as
they develop in their growth.

Plants of the kinds which do not bloom profusely during the
summer and fall months are the best to lift and pot for winter
bloom. Five or six inch pots are necessary, and the soil in the
pot should not be kept too wet at any time. The foliage should
be frequently sprinkled with cold water and not kept in too warm
a place.

Rooted carnation plants are cheap and bear transportation
well. You can send for the young plants to a florist a thousand
miles away. They can be received by mail, and if well rooted and
cared for, every one of them will grow.

The range of colors attained in carnations is so great, the
flower is so artistic, its grace so perfect, its duration so lasting, its
fragrance so delicious, that it stands in the esteem of the lovers of
flowers as "the sweetest smile of nature."

CHAPTER XXX.
EPILOGUES-EVOLUTION OF THE FIVE-PETALED PINK.

EVOLUTION is the grandest theme that ever engaged the
mind of man. It is the history of creation, stepping by
resistless law from a green Kden to a cindered world. It
does not derogate from Deity, but magnifies omnipotence. Every
man must have a loftier conception of the creative cause, who
sees life as an act of God, and evolution as its law. One theory
views God as an adventurer, without prevision, or prophecy, gov-
erning the world from contingencies as they arise. The other sees
him as an omnicient ruler, trailing through duration a wise and
inexorable law, that moulds worlds out of nebulae, cosmos out of
chaos, and life out of latency. Darwin climbed this idea and built
his throne on its simple truth. Under the law of evolution, orders,
classes, genera and species of the vegetable kingdom, deploy
themselves into serried ranks, by the imperious mandate of the
best to persist, the fittest to survive, the strongest to endure, and
no flower blooms without an object, no insect crawls on aim-
less feet, no man aspires without a purpose.

It was an act of amazing poiver to create a plant instinct with
life, and one of measureless wisdom, to project a law by the thau-
maturgy of which a noxious Blind Starwort should change into
the humble five-petaled pink, seen by Theophrastus, that into the
carnation of Alegatiere, and that into Dianthus Superba of the
Twentieth Century. Man is a civilized savage, a carnation is
an evolved weed. Heredity and progress are fighting forces, one
advances, the other retreats. One cries "go!" the other "whoa!"
One is history, the other prophecy; one lifts men to monarchs,
the other lapses them to lazzaroni; one lifts a catchfly to a Law-
son, the other would degrade it to a weed.

Carnations have kept abreast with the progress of the ages,
in their marvelous march, and have ever advanced the standards

172

AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

f
\

w

Courtesy of F. R. Pierson Co.

THE MARQUIS.

EPILOGUE. 173

of excellence up toward the mountain's crest, where beauty
dwells and toys with grace. Evolution sits sceptered in the
throne room of a carnation's life, it is ambushed with its embryo
in its seedbed of mealy albumen. Evolution hears the chimes of
loftier life, counts the units of heat, and light that fate affords,
then mounts to the summit of their annual average. A law of
the universe is epitomized in this plant. The carnation is embodied
evolution. It enacts the law in pantomime and sing its song
without an accent.

A grain of corn hides in its germ food for millions. There
are unborn forests in an acorn's cup, and a world of wonders cor-
ralled in a carnation's carpel.

There is not an instance in the world's botany in which a
single variety of a genus of plants so completely absorbs the mer-
its of an Order, and all its cognate species, as does the carnation.
There are but three species of the Dianthus genus of plants, be-
sides Caryophyllus, that bear a flower worthy of a glance. D.
Barbatus, D. Plumaris, D. Chinesus, and their countless sports.
The cognate relations of carnation are known as ragweed, star-
wort, catchfly lychnis, ragged robin, stickey weed, sand wort,
mouse-eared pink, and scores of others too insignificant to sport
even a vulgar name, which the grace and beauty of Dianthus
Superba would entrance a seraph, if it was not gazing on a God.

There never was a Satrap with as many poor relations, or a
Midas with such a multitude of impoverished peons. It is
sovereign over the realm of flowers and rules a world of weeds.

There is a dynamic energy that centralizes sentiment and
polarizes power. Every thing on earth tends to Alpine heights, or
to tartarean depths, to mirific force, or ravishing beauty. The
most chaotic contentions of life at last focalize themselves in a
single brain, condense their issues into edicts and leap in epi-
grams from fire-touched tongues.

"Liberty or Death" is all there was between Lexington and
Yorktown. "Union and Liberty," between Sumpter and Appo-
mattox.

174 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE.

A sunburst of evolving floral beauty is all there is of
carnations between Theophrastus and Charles Starr, the isle of
Greece and Avondale.

There is a mysterious bond of union between painting and
poetry, music and flowers. They are but different manifestations
of the same master passion in the human mind. They sanctify
the spot wherever they touch the dirt of earth.

A poet boy plowed the rugged hills beside the river Ayr,
and they intone the songs of Robert Burns. Angelo frescoed
the "Last Judgment" on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in
Rome, with such thrilling realism, that the beholder stands palsied
in the presence of the most mirific tragedy God can ever enact.

Melody caressed a poor man's child at Augsburg and
Mozart, at the age of six, began to time the keyboard of the
world's sweet sounds. Tactful fingers in cross-fertilization
mixed life and oriency with mystic mordants in a crypt of con-
ception, and Buttercup rainbows Avondale with the color wealth
of all the zones.

Flowers are embodied sentiment, bits of sunshine tangled with
life's shades, and heralds of a higher range of virtues. While
science, that never throbed a pulse of poetry with its Theodolite, is
measuring the curves and angles of these mental marvels, religion
with faultless prescience sees God behind them all.

Clothed in crimson and white,. red and maroon, carmine and
pink, purple and gold, Dianthus Superba, with flashing beauty,
flings the perfumed smoke of spices from censers not lit with
fire, and steps with matchless grace across the threshold of the
Twentieth century, the unchallenged color, Queen of Flora.

Courtesy of F. R. Pierson Co.

MRS. JAMES DEAN,

PARTIAL VIEW OF THE I^AMBORN GREENHOUSES.

PETER HENDERSON & CO,

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THE FLORISTS' MANUAL,

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Is a book of 224 large pages (8xn inches), and contains about 200 articles on commercial
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5. S. SKIDELSKY, Philadelphia, Pa., Agt.

and flowers

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