46 



THE FLORISTS' MANUAL. 



put the cuttings in the sand. No spe- 

 cial propagating house is needed. An 

 ordinary bench such as you would 

 grow carnations on, is as good as the 

 most expensive arrangements and the 

 temperature of the house can be just 

 the same. Avoid a direct draught, 

 either from a door or ventilator. Car- 

 nations want the light and little shad- 

 ing is needed during January and Feb- 

 ruary. When the sun gets high enough 

 to wilt the cuttings we tack cheese 

 cloth up to the glass. That is far bet- 

 ter than laying on and taking off news- 

 papers. The cloth is heavy enough to 

 shed the rays of the sun at any time 

 and is far enough above the^ cuttings 

 to give them sufficient' light at all 

 times. 



For the cutting bed three inches of 

 coarse clean river or lake sand is suf- 

 ficient. As a consolation to those who 

 do not have lake sand near them I will 

 say that for the past five years I have 



every day. If hot water or steam pipes 

 run beneath the board bench, there is 

 no harm done, but what we know as 

 bottom heat is not at all essential in 

 propagating carnations. 



In the early days of carnation grow- 

 ing, before flowers were picked with 

 long stems, we used for cuttings only 

 the young growths from the bottom, 

 those that would grow up and produce 

 flowers, and I am not sure but what 

 they make the finest plants. They 

 are not, however, the quickest or sur- 

 est to root. The propagator of large 

 quantities, or those wishing to raise 

 the largest possible number of a new 

 variety, may take every green shoot 

 that will make a plant or root. But 

 that is not the way to perpetuate your 

 plants for the best results. Cuttings 

 should be taken only from the health- 

 iest plants, and it will pay to also 

 choose from the plants bearing the 

 largest and best flowers, for like begets 



Bench of Carnation Cuttings. 



propagated in bank sand, containing 

 even some loam in fine particles, and 

 I have not lost on an average 5 per 

 cent, of the cuttings, and in free root- 

 ing varieties, like Scott and Day- 

 break, none. There is little danger of 

 the troublesome fungus among your 

 carnation cuttings because the tem- 

 perature should not be high enough 

 for its vegetation. But as a preventive 

 and for another reason we always 

 water the sand with the ammoniacal 

 solution before each batch of cuttings 

 is put in. 



Watering is a matter of pure sense 

 and judgment. If the glass is covered 

 with snow, or the weather is dull and 

 sunless, we water every three or four 

 days. If the weather is bright and 

 sunny, allowing plenty of ventilation, 

 then every second day. And if you 

 have occasion to propagate late in 

 March the cuttings will take water 



like. The offshoots from the flower- 

 ing stem make fine cuttings, but they 

 should be taken not too low down, 

 where they are hard and woody, nor 

 too near the flower, where they are 

 small and spindling. 



Some growers just tear off the cut- 

 tings and put them in the sand as 

 they are pulled off. I prefer to cut 

 the smallest possible piece off the bot- 

 tom. As to trimming the leaves, gen- 

 erally the two lower ones are best re- 

 moved. Shearing off the tops of the 

 leaves does not hurt the cuttings, nor 

 does it help them to root; it is done 

 merely to allow you to get more cut- 

 tings into the same surface of sand. 

 The distance apart to place the cut- 

 tings in the sand is merely a question 

 of variety. Some need more room than 

 others, but the cuttings should be at 

 least one inch into the sand in straight 

 rows, and the man that cannot draw 



with an old knife a perfectly straight 

 line across three or four feet of propa- 

 gating bed without the aid of a 

 straight edge should be sent back to 

 washing pots. 



In a temperature of 50 degrees at 

 night the cuttings will root in 25 to 

 30 days. They do not all root equally 

 in the same time. Some cuttings (of 

 roses for instance) are best potted up 

 as soon as the roots have started out 

 a fourth of an inch, but a carnation 

 I would rather have with roots an 

 inch long. I have occasion every year 

 to put some in flats in two inches of 

 sand and some in 2 1 /4-inch pots, and 

 I see no difference in results in the 

 field. The flats (mine are small, hold- 

 ing only two dozen plants) are much 

 the cheapest, requiring less care and 

 being easier to handle than pots. 



After the first week from the sand 

 they will be well rooted in the pots 

 or flats and should be given full sun- 

 light and plenty of air. As planting 

 out time approaches you will have 

 stopped firing in the houses, so a 

 good light exposure there will do as 

 well for the plants as anywhere, but 

 if crowded for room a cold-frame is 

 quite as good a place and even better 

 as you can remove the sash entirely 

 on mild days and thus prepare in 

 the best way for planting in the field. 

 We always like to have the plants 

 early enough to have pinched or stop- 

 ped them once before planting out 

 time. 



Field Culture. 



Don't put off planting time. The 

 carnation is not a tender plant; it is 

 almost a truly hardy plant. In our 

 latitude the end of April or very early 

 in May is late enough. If you defer 

 planting till end of May you have 

 lost a month's growth. Perhaps no 

 crop should be grown year after year 

 for many years on the same spot. We 

 know this is very wrong for some, 

 but we have grown carnations three 

 consecutive years on the same ground 

 and have not noticed the slightest ill 

 effects. We use a light dressing of 

 stable manure every spring and plow 

 deep, not less than eight inches. 



We plant 12 inches between plants 

 and 15 inches between rows and leave 

 out every sixth row. Be sure to plant 

 in straight rows both ways; that al- 

 lows you to run your Planet, Jr., cul- 

 tivator both ways. This little cultiva- 

 tor saves you lots of labor and does 

 about all the work, yet two or three 

 times during the season you must go 

 over them with the hand hoe and 

 loosen up the soil close to the plants. 

 We don't hoe primarily to kill weeds. 

 We hoe or cultivate to keep the soil 

 loose, and incidentally we of course 

 destroy all the weeds. After a heavy 

 rain when the ground is just friable 

 seems the best time of all to hoe. Then 

 the operation is a pleasure and it's a 

 blessing to the plants. You can al- 

 most see them grow. Yet we do not 

 always wait for a rain. In long dry 

 spells in June, July and August we 

 cultivate once a week. 



