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. 



