The Weekly Florists' Review* 



219 



NEW CARNATIONS. 



Tlic varieties of carnations now claim- 

 ing; attention, each one witli some su- 

 perlative quality and all superior to those 

 of very recent introduction, are getting 

 very numerous. So plentiful are they 

 advertised that one hardly knows what 

 one shall buy. I use this rather stilted 

 phraseology because it occurs to me at 

 the moment and is borrowed from a little 

 bit of real experience. I met a young 

 lady of our vicinity at some fraternal 

 society. She was presiding at the organ, 

 while the brothers and sisters sang a few 

 verses of the Golden Rule. It was some 

 fraternal insurance society, since de- 

 funct, but 1 forget its title. I met the 

 organist on the street several times dur- 

 ing the next two years, but she never 

 varied her dress, poor girl. It was drab, 

 or gray, but had a broad green vertical 

 stripe, and that is the only reason I re- 

 member it. If it had not had that con- 

 spicuous stripe I should never have rec- 

 ognized the same old dress. One day in 

 May I met her, and the brief dialogue 

 was this: ''How do you do, Mr. S.?" 



"How do you do. Miss ." She 



says: "Very changeable weather," 

 "Very," says I. "It is so changeable," 

 says she, "that one hardly knows what 

 one shall wear," and I pass along to see 

 how many geraniums and coleus will be 

 wanted in Mrs. Delaware's flower garden, 

 but quite happy because I bagged a 

 gem. Now with carnations it is the same, 

 but for a different reason. 



As Mr. Herr says in his article pub- 

 lished in your splendid number last week, 

 it is not necessary to buy all the high- 

 priced novelties by the thousand. Yet 

 every wide-awake man likes to keep to 

 the front, and even if his place is limited 

 he does spend a good deal of money in 

 trying the wonderful new varieties. 

 There are two ways of looking at this 

 matter of buying a new variety. I have 

 reason to be very thankful that I bought 

 500 of some novelties, and I am many 

 dollars in pocket because I had bought 

 that quantity instead of twenty-five or 

 fifty, and, again, I have bought 500 of 

 other novelties several times that proved, 

 with me, worthless. If you believed from 

 good reason that you could grow some 

 new variety well, then you would be 

 much in pocket by investing in it large- 

 ly. Perhaps on the whole for those who 

 have not the chance to see the novelties 

 growing or even the flowers at an exhibi- 

 tion it is perhaps wisest to invest in 

 small quantities. 



We owe much to the careful and pains- 

 taking hybridist, who, even if he does 

 get a seemingly large return for a good 

 thing, has to spend time and money on 

 thousands of seedlings that are worth- 

 less, and I hope these specialists will con- 

 tinue their good work. Yet the number 

 of seedlings now offered has given me 

 the thought that before long we shall be 

 all raising our own new varieties. There 

 is a good deal to be said in its favor and 

 all are warranted in devoting a small 



.-pMrc uf their bench to thin ])urpose. 

 ■riiere is only one danger. Don't get 

 •-Inck on your own offspring. Judge it 

 impartially. Why it is well to raise your 

 own seedlings is this: You can begin al- 

 most where the successful raiser has left 

 off. I am aware that one or two experts 

 in that lino will say: "Oh, no. Not by 

 any means. We are at least three years 

 ahead of you." They mean that a flower 

 showing great excellence will be used by 

 them for seed raising three years before 

 it is sent out. That may be so. but tlu' 

 evolution of the carnation is not so fast 

 that that will make a great difference or 

 lie a bar to your raising a variety equal 

 to any. 



Tlien again the expert will say that 

 he has studied pedigree for many gen- 

 erations and the novice goes at it hap- 

 hazard, a mere chance with every possi- 

 bility of failure. I don't attach much im- 

 portance to pedigree. Where you have 

 such splendid varieties to start with, 

 phenomenal qualities in flowers and excel- 

 lent traits in the lower animal and gen- 

 ius in man is liable to break out from 

 very ordinary pedigree. I don't know 

 that Cromwell, or Shakespeare, or Napo- 

 leon could brag about their pedigree and 

 yet they were all wonders. There is yet 

 another and better reason why it is 

 worth trying to raise varieties for our 

 own use. If you were to sow 200 seeds 

 and ten of them had very fine flowers 

 you would take care of them the second 

 year. Three or four may show vigor and 

 growth with a fine habit and give you 

 lots of bloo'm. The others were less de- 

 sirable all round. Now those two or 

 three or four that ranked so high just 

 suited the soil or rather the soil suited 

 them and undoubtedly they or their di- 

 visions, which cuttings merely are, will 

 always do well in the same soil. 



I think this is simple to see and noth- 

 ing nAv but not always considered. If 

 the plant does well with you for two 

 years you have got a variety that is 

 suited to your soil and you could even 

 go farther than that and say that it 

 suited not only your soil but your local- 

 ity or climate and treatment. I don't 

 want to encourage anyone to be occupy- 

 ing valuable space for too much experi- 

 menting but I feel sure that the day is 

 coming when the great majority of grow- 

 ers will raise their own seedlings and 

 when they get a good one grow it for 

 the flowers which will be of more conse- 

 quence than sending out the plants. It 

 is late now but not too late to make 

 some crosses and have a few hundred 

 seedlings for planting out next summer. 

 "William Scott. 



CARNATION NOTES. 



Syringing. 



During the past week the weather has 

 been Just the opposite of what it was 

 the week before, except that it remained 

 moderately cold, making it necessary to 

 keep up steady firing. There is not so 

 much danger of soft growth as there is 

 when the weather is warm and cloudy, 

 providing you keep the atmosphere cool 



and dry. A good demand is likely to 

 make us fire up a little more in order 



10 keep the cut of blooms near to where 



11 \-. during bright weather, and if this 

 ii I |i|irri<cl only a day or two each week 



III (lie rest of the week were bright 



II, would not be so harmful, but to keep 

 it up a week at a time would be one 

 of the worst things you could do. If 

 }ou have orders for more blooms than 

 you can cut you can alwiiys procure all 

 you need from some of the large whole- 

 sale establishments, or from the com- 

 mission houses. Better spend a dollar 

 now and then and save the health of your 

 stock. We hear of several firms who 

 were cutting fine blooms just prior to 

 and •hniiTg the linlidnys, but who forced 



III. ir iil.inl-^ niii.;i-..n:ilily hard and long 

 mill iiiiiilr ilirni \r]\ - 1 1 f t and thc blooms 

 |pnni. liny nil- l..-nii; now what they 

 gamed then, and very likely a good deal 



Common sense will tell you not to 

 syringe during such weather as we have 

 been having even if it kept up for several 

 weeks unless you have a bad case of red 

 spider on hand. Carnations like a moder- 

 ately' dry atmosphere, and during these 

 long, dark and rainy spells we need to 

 keep out dampness rather than add to it 

 by syringing. W'hen you water do not 

 spray overhead, but turn the water on 

 only part way, so it will have no force, 

 and run the end of the hose between the 

 rows just above the soil. Try to do as 

 much of your watering on bright days 

 as you can, but there will be a s.pot here 

 and there that must be watered. The 

 beds can be allowed to become much 

 dryer during cloudy weather without suf- 

 fering than you would dare have them 

 if the weather were bright; but avoid 

 extremes either way, especially as long 

 as you cannot tell from one day to the 

 next what the weather will be like. 



Last week's Eeview contained a pro- 

 test from an eastern grower against 

 syringing carnations at all. The writer 

 says he can keep off red spider better 

 without syringing than he can with it, 

 but in the same breath he goes on to 

 say that when he does get a dose of 

 spider he rids his plants of it by syring- 

 ing twice each week for two or three 

 weeks at 4 p. m. His argument is that 

 syringing makes the growth soft and 

 that the dampness resulting therefrom 

 starts the carnation rust, which is true. 

 He admits that a certain amount of 

 syringing is necessary to keep the plants 

 free from spider, but at the same time 

 the foliage must not be kept damp too 

 much or the rust will make its appear- 

 ance. That is exactly what we have 

 always preached and practiced. W'e pick 

 out a bright day, and if possible, the 

 second one of two successive bright days, 

 and syringe our plants between 9 and 11 

 a. m., thus giving several hours of sun- 

 shine to dry them off again before night. 

 We find that an ounce of prevention is 

 better than a pound of cure and that by 

 repeating this about once each week we 

 are able to keep our plants free from 

 spider and at the same time we never 

 have our plants wet for more than a 

 few hours at a time, and never over night, 

 so it is not likely that rust will start 

 from dampness. Now suppose you re- 

 frain from syringing until you see a 

 dose of red spider and then syringe 

 heavily, wetting the plants all over about 

 4 p. m. There is no chance for them 

 to dry off before night and in fact not 

 before the next day, and if it happens 

 to be cloudy it will take more than 

 that day to dry them off thoroughly. 



