SUMMER WORK 61 



cubator of stem rot. The fact that the Carnation makes a 

 great many surface roots is abundant evidence that they 

 require a certain amount of air, and possibly light. 



Pinching should be attended to regularly. Work the 

 surface soil with the hoe to keep weeds in check and the 

 soil aerated. Unless watering can be done thoroughly and 

 be maintained, it should never be commenced, for when 

 dry, the plants will draw themselves all out of shape. 



FIELD STOCK AND OLD PLANTS IN JULY 



Cultivating is what the plants want in the field. A 

 rainy season may give you the largest plants by Fall, but 

 the ideal stock consists of medium sized ones such as have 

 developed during a rather dry Summer, and where a high 

 state of cultivation has been kept up while the plants were 

 in the field. Such stock, when housed and properly at- 

 tended to afterward, will make the finest of specimen 

 plants. Avoid, if you can, a soft growth, such as you would 

 obtain by keeping the soil around the plants soaked at all 

 times. By so doing you are laying the foundation for 

 stem-rot and other diseases. Don't mind because it 

 doesn't rain for two or three weeks; run through the rows 

 with the wheel cultivator and keep the soil stirred. By 

 examining you will find that a few inches below the surface 

 there is moisture, and the little roots are by this time down 

 into it, and the more you keep a loose mulch of soil on top 

 the cooler it will be for the roots below. You will get a 

 short jointed stocky plant, and there is none better than 

 such a one for housing in August. At the same time, in 

 the very dry sections or seasons, irrigation in watering is 

 often a necessity, else hard-stemmed plants will result, 

 and these never grow freely. 



