46 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE. 



The carnation plat, if it does not possess a gravelly or sandy 

 sub-soil, must be well underdrained, given a coat of well rotted 

 manure, and, as a precaution against stem-rot, a light spread of 

 lime or wood ashes. The ground should be deeply plowed, thor- 

 oughly pulverized, evenly rolled and acurately marked out, ten 

 inches each way for a hand cultivator, and ten inches by three feet 

 for horse cultivator, cavities being made at the cross sections of 

 the markings with a half-round trowel in which the roots are in- 

 serted, the dirt pulled around them and made firm with the fingers. 

 If the field is of doubtful sub-drainage, planting the carnations 

 on slightly elevated ridges may fortify the crop of plants against 

 great damage from excess of wet. The time for transplanting 

 carnations in the field in the carnation zone ranges from the loth 

 of April to the loth of May. Frost or a moderate freeze will not 

 injure the plants if they are properly ''hardened off", which can 

 not be determined by the appearance of the plants, but by the treat- 

 ment they have received in their transition from greenhouse heat 

 to outside temperature. The hardiest plants may be killed in 

 being transferred at once from under greenhouse glabs to the open 

 ground. The average of a carnation's life in the field is four 

 months; during this time the ground should be frequently super- 

 ficially stirred. The hand cultivator is altogether the preferable 

 implement, but when the acreage is large it is laborious. The ac- 

 cepted and rational principle applied to crops in agriculture, as to 

 rotation, applies with equal force to carnations, not however on the 

 ground of food elements in the soil being exhausted by the crop, 

 but on the theory that every species of vegetation grown long on 

 one spot attracts hordes of its own particular insectivorous and bac- 

 terial enemies to the place as a base of supply and breeding 

 grounds. 



The "greenfly," "thrips," "root nematoides," wet and dry 

 "stem rot," are caused by insectivorous and bacterial germs, 

 that especially find congenial food in the Dianthus genus of 

 plants. Changing the location of carnation fields must disarrange 

 their multiplication. The Dianthus family of plants are hardy in 

 the temperate zone. Adaptation by selection is breeding carnations 



