PLANTING OR POTTING ? 47 



it is irresistible, for it speaks with a voice compared with which 

 our eloquent eulogies are but faint and cold. 



The soil in which we grow them is but indifferent in character, 

 though we are improving it year by year. It is light and gravelly, 

 but we add heavier stuff with crushed bones as often as we re-make 

 the beds. When they are originally prepared we dig as deep 

 as we can, adding a light dressing of old mortar rubble because the 

 soil is deficient in lime. We keep a store of this commodity by us> 

 and are always keen to avail ourselves of an opportunity for procuring 

 a few loads, for it is of great value. 



The beds are made 4 feet wide, raised several inches above the 

 paths, and this ensures quick drainage. We have seen beds planted 

 on the level, in soil less free than ours, and during a wet winter 

 water has stagnated about the plants and frozen there, the consequent 

 loss of valuable plants being certain. 



As to soil for carnations generally, we are little inclined to dog- 

 matise, but we do insist upon good and deep digging and cultivation. 

 There is scarcely a soil upon which we have seen them refuse to 

 grow, and have ourselves grown them by thousands on the Lan- 

 cashire coast around Southport, where the staple soil is pure sea 

 sand ; and we have grown them in equal numbers on the heavy 

 clay found at the foot of the Cotswold hills. In the alluvial soils of 

 the Thames Valley, where it has the consistency of putty for one 

 half the year and the closeness of bricks for the other half, it has 

 thriven marvellously, and plants from that district have been 

 distributed north, south, east, and west by us, and now that we 

 are on the East Coast with light, brashy, gravelly soils we do them 

 equally well. So who, after this varied experience, dare insist 

 that a carnation must have such and such a soil ? Naturally, it has 

 its preferences, and if we were in a position to select our own soil 

 for them we should select a fairly heavy loam, not too consistent, 

 but containing a fair proportion of silica. It need not be rich 

 with organic manures, but lime, either as rubble or in the form of 

 crushed bone, should be supplied. Such a soil will produce short- 

 jointed, vigorous growths, making splendid layers, and, eventually, 

 ideal plants. Let us here and now advise whomsoever it may concern 

 to plant none but strong, vigorous plants, for from weak and weedy 

 layers nothing can come but keen disappointment. 



