GANNAS, CARNATIONS 301 



nest green-leaved sorts, with red flowers, and San Diego is an ex- 

 llent yellow; but you will have to keep on trying the newcomers 

 n order to keep uptodate and in touch with the best. Good sorts 

 ome and go and others take their place. It is only once in awhile 

 at a King Humbert happens. 



I well remember thirty years ago we bought twelve Ganna 

 lants of a recent introduction. It was called Star of '91, a dwarf 

 ed, and never was anything more closely watched for the first buds 

 open. We couldn't imagine anything grander at the time, but 

 ts light soon grew dim as other brighter stars appeared, and finally 

 went out. So it has been going ever since that time, and thirty 

 ears hence others will recall "has-beens" which today seem to us 

 most perfection itself. 



CANDYTUFT 



See Iberis 



CARNATIONS 



It is just about forty-five years ago that my grandfather at 

 Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, showed me for the first time how 

 to prepare a Carnation cutting to be put into cocoanut fiber mixed 

 with washed sand, and impressed on me the fact that Carnations 

 formed one of the florist's main flowers, even if he himself never 

 could actually make any money out of them. 



I have been in touch with Carnations ever since, have watched 

 their development, tried my hand at bringing out new sorts, met 

 with a lot of disappointments, and then forgot all about them when 

 awarded a certificate of merit or able to bring home a few blue rib- 

 bons from the shows. I have spent many happy hours in the pot- 

 ting shed with old-timers, going over some of the sorts we could call 

 to mind, that had made their entry to the accompaniment of a lot 

 of noise from the introducer and all kinds of promises. We would 

 recollect all the many remarkable qualities they were to possess, how 

 the new star would in a short time outshine all others and bring us 

 wealth, how they occupied the "footlights" for awhile and then 

 disappeared into everlasting darkness without leaving even a trace. 



Here and there was an exception. It took Enchantress to re- 

 place Daybreak, and Enchantress has outlasted any other sort; 

 and those that are considered best of all that are with us today are 

 still on trial. To be sure, we are going forward, making headway. 

 Look at a vase of well grown Laddie, Maine Sunshine, White De- 

 light, Democracy, Denver, or Eureka, and then recall to mind 

 Portia, Garfield, Tidal Wave, Hinze's White, or Grace Wilder. 

 But what Wm. Scott predicted to me in Buffalo, twenty years ago, 

 that the day would come when every Carnation grower would raise 

 and grow his own seedlings, has not come true. As with the Rose and 



