228 ON RAISING CARNATIONS FROM SEED. 



from one to two good flowers to one hundred inferior and worth- 

 less plants. With this I perfectly agree, provided that the 

 ordinary mode of obtaining the seed be pursued. We are told 

 that it is a plant that never produces seed in considerable quanti- 

 ty, nor even any at all, unless in very dry and warm summers and 

 under peculiar treatment, and even then with difficulty, arising 

 as it is stated " from the extreme doubleness of the flower," a 

 mistake originating either from ignorance of the natural structure 

 of the flower and its physiology, or from want of sufficient expe- 

 rience in the writer. The Carnation is one of nature's most 

 brilliant offerings to the flower garden, and although almost uni- 

 versally cultivated and admired for the symmetry and fine colour- 

 ing of its blossoms, and for its delicate and grateful perfume, it is 

 rarely seen in its fine varieties, some of which are really splendid 

 and admirable, eclipsing all the flowers of its season, and making 

 it as the pre-eminent ornament of the summer, as the Dahlia is of 

 the autumnal months. 



The scarcity of those fine flowers arises from two causes— first, 

 from the jealousy of the few florists possessing them, who think 

 them worthy of being exhibited and distributed to the initiated 

 only ; and secondly, from the neglect of raising plants from the 

 seed of the best floweis, and from such only. Any florist who 

 has sufficient energy and who wishes to derive more gratification 

 from the culture of his Carnations, than he has yet enjoyed, may, 

 by attending to the following directions obtain ample amusement 

 and an abundant repayment for his time and trouble, in the pro- 

 duction of many valuable and magnificent new flowers. 



It is true that nearly all the blossoms of Double Carnations, if 

 unaided by the hand of the gardener, will be unproductive of seed, 

 but they are hi very many cases capable of being made fertile. 

 The organs of reproduction are in almost every instance fully de- 

 veloped, from the crowded state of the petals the operations of 

 nature for production are defeated. 



Every gardener and florist should know that plants are anala- 

 gous to animals in their power of multiplying their kind, and re- 

 quire the co-operation of the sexes. In the Carnation, though ever 

 so double, the male part of the flower or stamen is generally 

 found, as is also the pietil of the female portion, together with the 

 ovary, containing the embryo seeds, which may be observed by 

 examining the blossoms of any double Carnations. The sexual 

 distinctions are most easily distinguished. The florist, to be sue- 



