62 THE CARNATION MANUAL. 



should be removed from about the plants to the 

 depth of an inch or so and replaced with the com- 

 post. The layers should then be pegged down, 

 sufficiently well covered with the soil, but not 

 set too deep so as to be beyond the genial action of 

 the sun. They should then be sprinkled with a 

 rose water-pot, and this should be repeated as often 

 as they become dry. If the weather is very warm 

 at the time they may need sprinkhng three times a 

 day for a while, as it is essential that they should 

 not be allowed to flag. As the sun declines in 

 power, the sprinkling will be less frequently needed, 

 and by the latter end of September or the be- 

 ginning of October they will be ready to take off 

 and plant out. 



So far we have dealt with the Carnation simply 

 as a garden flower; and here it may be well to 

 remark that the foregoing recommendations as to 

 culture are to be taken as referring not merely to 

 the self-coloured or " border " varieties, as they are 

 often termed, but equally to the bizarres, flakes and 

 picotees — the exhibition sorts, as we are accus- 

 tomed to call them, though in these later days 

 they have no monopoly of the exhibition table. 

 It seems necessary to point this out, as there is 

 a rather prevalent impression, not only with the 

 general public, but found existing even among 

 gardeners and gardening writers, that the refined 

 bizarres and flakes and picotees, because refined in 



