34 DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARNATION 



FRED DORNEr's WORK 



Looking over later lists of historic Carnations, and 

 over the names of their raisers, one or two among these 

 latter stand out pre-eminently, and first that of the late 

 Frederick Dorner. Mr. Dorner conducted " the most 

 systematic work in developing the Carnation, and suc- 

 ceeded in producing a strain which is recognized as the 

 highest development of the American Carnation. His 

 records cover a period of twenty-one years, and contain a 

 complete list of many thousands of Carnations during 

 that time. This strain is distinguished for its easy growing 

 habit, Its freedom and steadiness in producing blooms, and 

 diversity of colors and its adaptability to commercial 

 growing."* It was fitting that the American Carnation 

 Society should have perpetuated the memory of Mr. Dor- 

 ner by instituting the memorial gold medal that bears his 

 name, and which is annually awarded now at its exhibitions 

 to the raiser of the best undisseminated seedling of the 

 year. At the society's meeting at Detroit, Michigan, in 

 January, 19 12, a paper was read by Prof. H. B. Dorner on 

 the hybridizing work and methods of Frederick Dorner. f 



Frederick Dorner, Sr., was born in 1837 in Baden, 

 Germany, in a town situated in the Black Forest region, 

 and came to America in 1855 in his eighteenth year. He 

 first obtained employment as a florist at Lafayette, then 

 went farming, and in 1865 migrated to Wisconsin, still in 

 the farming line, until 1870, when he returned to Lafayette 

 and started on his own account as a florist; here he built 

 greenhouses, and becoming successful, bought first nine 



*Gpo. C. Blitz, in " Slandard Cyclopedia of Horticulture." 



t Proceedings of the twenty-first annual meeting of the A. C. S , 1912, pages 

 33-38. 



