42 PICTORIAL PRACTICAL CARNATION GROWING. 
taken in homceopathic doses they will not unduly strain the purse 
strings. 
The writer made a-start on the lines of about twelve standard 
sorts to one novelty. The stock varieties were purchased from 
various well-known dealers; the specialities were direct from the 
famous Hayes source. 
It would not be easy to express the pleasure which these various 
acquisitions imparted. They gave the writer a new gardening 
interest. He followed the doings of the leading exhibitors, the 
proceedings of the Carnation Society, and the description of 
novelties, with the utmost alertness. Alas! most of the plants went 
the way of much Carnation flesh during the first winter from the 
attacks of mould. In frames and out of doors it was just the same. 
The stock steadily dwindled, until it was reduced to the most 
saddening meagreness. He tried again; again the winter thinned 
the plants severely, and not until he had discovered a means of 
baffling this deadly enemy did he succeed in maintaining the stock. 
As to this, more in a later chapter. . 
It is a point in favour of the Carnation that it can be propagated 
so readily. When every plant gives its half-dozen or more young 
ones there is no reason why gardens should go without Carnations. 
Of layering it is proposed to speak fully later on yat present it is 
desired to point out how readily stock may be increased by pipings 
and cuttings. It frequently happens that there are growths on a 
Carnation which are not suitable for layering. They may be too 
short, or they may be so situated that if they were drawn down for 
layering they would snap off. Material of this sort need not be 
wasted where there is a shortage of stock. It may be utilised in the 
form of either a cutting or a piping. 
Propagation by pipings is not now practised much in connection 
with Carnations, although common enough with Pinks, which have 
more slender shoots and a more tufted habit than their sisters. 
Oldtime Carnation growers did not despise a piping. They pulled 
RAISING FROM SEED. FIG. 18 (NEXT PAGE).—PLANTING OUT. 
1, sturdy seedling raised by sowing seed at the end of March or early in 
April, pricking off, growing on, and planting outdoors at the end of 
May or early in June. The outlines show the depth of planting in 
flowering quarters. 
2, planting out bed, in an open, selected position, where the ground has 
been trenched to a depth of 18 inches, and cultivated for some 
years, so that the mould is in a friable, open condition. A good 
dressing of thoroughly rotted manure should be added, but the manure 
ought not to be placed in immediate contact with the roots: w, 
alleys, 16 inches wide; x, bed, 4 feet wide, and plants 16 inches 
apart in equilateral triangle arrangement; y, hole taken out with 
a trowel; z, plant placed in the hole with its ball of soil. 
