Cultivation of the Carnation and Picotee. 349 



truly observes, " Professional gardeners are not very good 

 cultivators of carnations. It is not every gardener that knows 

 how to grow a carnation, however lightly he may treat it, 

 and however confident he may feel of doing it. If he neg- 

 lects to prepare proper corhposts, his plants will not thrive ; 

 if he does not pay requisite attention to them before and 

 during their flowering, the bloom will not be worth looking 

 at ; if he does not understand how to propagate them, they 

 will all very soon perish. Gardeners unaccustomed to flow- 

 ers, are, in general, bad propagators. Few of them have any 

 right notion of piping ; and though nothing is more simple, 

 they never set about it as if they wished to succeed ; they 

 are likewise great bunglers in layering ; there is not one in 

 ten whose assistance I would claim upon the most pressing 

 occasion, and leave the operation to them, uncontrolled and 

 unlocked after ; whereas I could trust to any amateur cob- 

 bler, weaver, tailor, or barber, who had had the least practice 

 with their own flowers, to do this layering in the most sat- 

 isfactory manner. This I know from experience, that very 

 few of them, unless fond of the flower itself, seem to take 

 any care of them, or treat them right, or bloom them well. 

 The London Horticultural Society were at great pains and 

 expense to form a collection of carnations and picotees, both 

 English and foreign ; but they had not a man in the garden 

 who knew how to treat them, and they all perished in a year 

 or two." 



What this author has stated, is in the main true, and 

 though written twenty years ago, the cultivation of the car- 

 nation is still so much confined to florists, that scarcely a 

 general nurseryman in England can supply a good collection 

 of plants. It is true that where they are grown in pots, as 

 they usually are in England, more care is requisite than when 

 grown in the open ground ; yet even in the latter place there 

 is a certain degree of attention, — not extra skill, — necessary 

 to produce large and fine blooms and strong and healthy 

 plants. We have noticed the same inattention, and apparent 

 unconcern among gardeners, in regard to a collection of car- 

 nations, as mentioned by Hogg, and have often found that 



