154 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE. 



Small carnation plants from the field, carried in 5-inch pots in 

 a g^ood cold frame through the winter, make magnificent blooming 

 pot plants for spring sales. 



Carnation cuttings should be inserted in the sand deep 

 enough and made sufficiently firm to enable them to maintain 

 vigorously a vertical position. 



Whither conditions favoring the best production of bloom in 

 carnation plants are the ones that afford the best cuttings is a ques- 

 tion of some uncertainty. I think the temperature too high and 

 the nutrient stimuli too great to yield a first class cutting from 

 the true semperflorens type of carnation plants, probably not for 

 its new and cognate species. But plants conditioned to produce 

 bloom are now accepted as proper to afford cuttings and their 

 yield is made secondary to the crop of flowers 



The profits of growing carnation flowers depend on the 

 management of the plants and the market to be reached. It is safe 

 to estimate that carnation plants, through the season, will average 

 twenty flowers each; ten square feet of glass will cover one hun- 

 dred plants, including alleys. The price of the flowers through the 

 season will average, in anj^ market, ten dollars per thousand. 

 High grade fancy flowers, in affluent markets, have command- 

 ed from sixty to one hundred dollars per thousand. 



''Practical Floric2dture,'' published in 1868, states that colored 

 carnations sold in the New York market then for twenty dollars 

 per thousand and whites for forty dollars The flowers then pro- 

 duced were without stems and ranged from one to two inches in 

 diameter. The excellent trade papers now published, with 

 the daily price circulars from wholesale dealers, keep the 

 producers in constant touch with the reigning prices of carnation 

 flowers. The season, quality, and market, control the price of 

 the carnation grower's product. 



