OLDER PLANTS 27 



in much smaller pots. For a few days after this keep them close 

 and shaded, but immediately the roots make a start revert to hardier- 

 treatment. They will then come gently on and a sharp look-out 

 must be kept for green aphis, for at this time of year May and 

 June they can be terribly destructive. The first week in July 

 should see them back once more in their flowering pots, after which 

 they will be subject almost to the same treatment they were given 

 the year before. 



Naturally they will bloom earlier than the young stock, and 

 because of their more advanced stage it is well to begin feeding them 

 at the beginning of August, either with liquid manure or with special 

 fertilisers, or both alternately. They will demand the same careful 

 watchfulness, the same protection against disease and pests, the 

 same minute attention to cultural details, and when ready to carry 

 indoors it will be found that a good crop of bright-coloured flowers 

 will be maturing for the early market. Thenceforward the treatment 

 of the two-year and the one-year stock is identical. 



INDOOR PLANTING 



So far, we have dealt fairly exhaustively with cultivation in pots, 

 because most growers confine themselves, as a matter of routine, 

 to pot culture, but there are many thousands of plants increasing 

 in number every year that are grown in indoor borders or on the 

 benches. Where suitable structures are erected this method will 

 supersede pots altogether by reason of the great economies it effects. 

 The treatment for planted carnations is in all its main essentials 

 very similar to that obtaining with pots, though in watering and 

 in fumigating it has its peculiar difficulties. A bed is not so directly 

 under control as a pot, and we consider that no one ought to attempt 

 the planting-out system until he has acquired a fairly intimate 

 knowledge of the carnation and its peculiarities. 



The soil, which should be clean and sweet, not left over from 

 tomatoes, but renewed, should be manured and further be enriched 

 with crushed bones. The distance from plant to plant in the rows 

 should not be less than I foot, with ij feet between the rows. 

 Each plant must have a stake or some other means of support. 

 Light, air, and moderate warmth are still as important as ever, and 



