OCTOBER. 219 



CARNATIONS AND PICOTEES. 



There are two or three radical rules in the cultivation of these flowers, 

 which I am convinced are not yet half understood. In establish- 

 ments in the midland counties, and among the Florists of the North, 

 I have seen them plant for blooming a pair of diminutive plants in 

 a pot 20 inches across; and for wintering I have seen the same pair, 

 or in many cases a solitary plant, in 5 and 6-inch pots. The result 

 of this procedure is, that the plants are surrounded through the period 

 most critical in their existence by soil more or less sour and stagnant, 

 and the inevitable consequence from its enforced feeding on crude 

 material, and an almost total absence of fresh, invigorating air — the 

 sweet breath of Heaven, — is an unhealthy, debilitated growth; a 

 severe prostration of its vital powers; in many cases a thorough 

 disorganisation of its general functions, and — death. Sap stored up 

 in such circumstances can but produce miserable, diminutive, mal- 

 formed flowers ; and it is not in the least surprising that, after a few 

 experiments of a like nature, such cultivators give up the flower in 

 disgust, desparing of ever attaining a successful issue. 



Radical rule number one requires the plant to be completely rested 

 throughout the winter; and to obtain a fine bloom, radical rule 

 number two requires the growth to be matured. Both of these con- 

 ditions are incompatible with the circumstances I have described, and 

 hence the failure. Rest to the plant in winter is almost impossible 

 so long as it is surrounded with a mass of dead soil (dead because 

 unoccupied and vivified by the plant), subject to every and the most 

 extreme alternations of heat and cold, drought and moisture, — now 

 curdling the current of its life with cold, and now exciting it anew 

 to gorge to repletion. Again, maturity of growth is inconsistent 

 with the existence of a body of unoccupied and highly-exciting soil. 

 As well might we expect fine sugary fruits from the gross growth of 

 our Apple, or Pear, or Plum trees, as fine blossoms from plants subject 

 to such conditions. In truth, both are amenable to the same law, and 

 it cannot be violated with impunity. Does the Pelargonium or the 

 Fuchsia produce a fine and abundant head of bloom with the pot half 

 filled with roots ? Certainly they do not; and quite as certainly the 

 Carnation will not. 



As a rule, the plants should be placed for the winter in such a 

 sized pot only as it can comfortably occupy with root before the fogs 

 of late autumn fall upon us, such indeed as will admit the plant to 

 feel the sides freely, which will at first gently check its growth; and, 

 secondly, secure a thorough drainage. Let no one, however, sup- 

 pose from this that the pot must be filled and bound with roots. 

 That would be avoiding Scylla to be wrecked upon Chary bdis. The 

 sides of the pot should be freely felt by the root, and no more. 



And so for the bloom : the growth must be matured before the 

 bloom can be fine ; and the growth will not mature until the whole of 

 the soil be permeated with root. Choose, therefore, a pot of such a 



