CHAPTER XII 

 PERPETUAL BORDER CARNATIONS, AND OTHERS 



IN the preceding pages we have had occasion to make certain 

 references to the gradual lengthening of the season during which the 

 border carnation will bloom in the open. We have perhaps been 

 more or less guarded in our observations, because we desire above 

 all things to keep to the bedrock of fact rather than of possibilities 

 or visions. For a moment or two we would like to more particularly 

 direct our observations to this remarkable and promising develop- 

 ment, which in the course of a very short time must, if it justifies 

 itself, prove of considerable commercial value. 



We have not yet sufficient evidence to commit ourselves to all 

 that is claimed for this improved race of border carnations ; we 

 express no doubts upon it, but that this is a development to be 

 watched must be apparent to all. For many generations, running 

 back into centuries, it has been what we have known it to be in 

 our own times as regards the duration of its season. This may have 

 been due to our own conservatism in dealing with it, and also that 

 of our forbears. Traditions were woven closely over our cherished 

 flower ; at all costs we considered we had to preserve its faultless 

 form as a sacred trust committed to us ; we guarded it with a whole- 

 hearted devotion which forbade our playing fast and loose with it, 

 or experimenting outside fixed limits. We concerned ourselves 

 mainly with improvements as they affected its substance, its colours, 

 its freedom, its vigour, its powers for resisting disease, and the 

 strengthening of its flower stalk and calyx. It seemed sacrilege 

 to go beyond, and we stealthily looked askance at the American 

 perpetuals. Of late, others, perhaps not less reverent, but certainly 

 less conservative, less bound to tradition and more greatly daring, 

 have broken through the crust and directed their efforts toward 

 improvement in quite a new direction, and that with the greatest 

 promise of success. What they have achieved is already startling, 

 and the auguries for the future are undoubtedly gratifying. 



Yet this development is a perfectly natural one, and what might 

 have been expected. It has already happened with roses, and the 



49 



