100 



CARNATION SUPPORTS 



Fig. 2 



Indiana towns, one-ring Carnation supports were invented 

 such as illustrated in Fig. i. This support was a very 

 simple device made of one piece of wire about 4, ft. long. 

 The ends of the wire formed the stake and 

 were bent at right angles to the single ring. 

 Number 1 1 galvanized wire was generally used 

 for this purpose. The rings varied from 5 in. to 

 7 in. in diameter. These home-made supports 

 were usually formed over inverted flower pots, 

 although a wooden block was sometimes used. 

 The supports of the one-ring design were made 

 with stakes of different lengths. By way of ex- 

 periment some growers combined the one-ring 

 support and the string and wire network. The 

 ring supports were put in place soon after the 

 plants were brought in from the fields. The 

 string and wire were put in place whenever the Carna- 

 tions needed additional support. This was 

 the most satisfactory way yet discovered, 

 but it proved to be very expensive, as a 

 great deal of time was consumed in the 

 two operations. 



The one-ring support had some merit 

 and this fact led to the designing of a single 

 plant support with three rings, such as 

 illustrated in Fig. 2. This support was 

 such a stride toward the ideal that several 

 different companies started to manufacture 

 them for the trade. The several makes 

 were similar in principle, but differed slight- 

 ly in construction. It was soon learned that these supports 

 had to be fastened to something in order to insure the 

 necessary rigidity. A running wire, stretched lengthwise 



Fig. 3 



