THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 261 



When once a stock is secured, it is no difficult matter to keep it 

 up, for they are easily increased either by layers or cuttings. Layers 

 are the best, if they are laid at the end of July, as then they make 

 sufficient roots to be removed about the middle of September, 

 "which gives them time to gain strength before winter. If handled 

 with reasonable care, they will produce a fine bloom the next year. 

 When I depend on young plants of this kind, I put out three in 

 each clump, at six inches apart, and obtain thereby a good show of 

 bloom the first year. The next autumn one plant is taken away if 

 they are too thick. 



Striking them from cuttings is an easy way to get up a stock, if 

 they are put in fine sandy soil, and sheltered with a hand-light. The 

 season to take cuttings is the same as for layering ; but I do not like 

 cuttings, for although they will do to plant out the following spring, 

 they do not flower well. I find I get the best plants by planting 

 them out for the first summer in a border in the kitchen garden, and 

 pinch out the rising flower-stems soon after they are visible, so that 

 they have nothing to do but grow, which they do very nicely, and 

 make fine plants by the autumn, when they are transferred to the 

 mixed borders. 



If you want to speculate on the chance of raising new varieties, 

 there is the plan of raising them from seed, which is a very easy 

 affair so far as their management is concerned, and as some really 

 good useful border kinds may be raised this way, from a packet of 

 seed that may be purchased for three or four shillings, there really is 

 no excuse why they should not adorn every lady's garden. They 

 are not only beautiful in colour and markings, but they are very 

 fragrant. Moreover, they are not only gay in the borders, but they 

 are the flowers above all others that most ladies like for toilet and 

 other tastefully-arranged decorations. To raise them from seed, it 

 is best to sow the seed with a very thin covering of soil under glass 

 in April, in pans four inches deep. These should be kept shaded for 

 the first fortnight, and as the seedlings appear, they should be 

 gradually inured to sun and air, and in June planted out in the open 

 grounds. If there is not a convenient spot in which to prove them, 

 whether they are worth keeping or not, they should be put out in 

 the borders about four seedlings in a clump, so that when they 

 flower, the worst kinds may be weeded out directly they show their 

 true characters. 



But the best plan, if at all possible, is to secure a small spot in 

 the kitchen garden to prove them, and then choose the best as they 

 flower for stock, and increase them from either cuttings or layers, 

 whichever way of propagation is considered best for each individual 

 case. I have, in my time, raised many very good flowers of both 

 carnations and picotees from seed from continental sources, and I 

 have this year seen a superb lot of double flowers raised from seed 

 from the same source. They were good enough to decorate any 

 flower garden. However, on that score, I trust I have said enough 

 to show that this once popular flower is deserving of more extended 

 cultivation, and eminently adapted for the ladies' garden. 



As regards further matters of cultivation, I must now remark 



