THE CARNATION MANUAL. 43 



such as will live through the winter and grow and 

 flower satisfactorily the following year. Its great 

 advantage is the small amount of risk involved in 

 the practice. 



Many things may happen to destroy a cutting 

 when detached from the parent plant, but a layer 

 is not detached, and, if properly put down, is all 

 but certain to succeed and make a plant. 



I endeavour to have this operation completed 

 either by the end of July or early in August. This 

 means that we have to be layering the shoots in 

 the height of the flowering season. But it is unde- 

 sirable when our groups are in full beauty that we 

 should be working among them layering the shoots, 

 as, beyond a few outside growths, it is not possible 

 to do much without doing harm. 



Yet it is a matter of first importance to layer 

 early, in order to secure plants for early planting, 

 and, to meet the necessities of the case, the plan I 

 am now adopting is to have a nursery stock grown 

 on purpose for layering. A sunny border in the 

 vegetable-garden is made up into beds about four 

 feet wide with alleys between. We select plants 

 of medium strength, and plant them in rows about 

 fifteen inches apart. They are planted rather 

 thickly in the rows, because there is abundant 

 room to layer the shoots in the spaces between. 

 This simplifies matters exceedingly, as layering can 

 be performed as soon as the shoots are ready, and 



