80 6BBENH0USB MANAGEMENT. 



stalk, the center bud should be pulled out, or the plant 

 pinched back, and all future attempts at flowering 

 should be checked by pulliug out the terminal leayes 

 from any plant that shows the least tendency towards it. 

 As soon as the plants begin to thicken up, it is well 

 to remove them to a cool house, or ^oV pit, where the 

 temperature will be thirty-five to forty aegrees. In the 

 case of the December-struck cuttings, this will give 

 them an opportunity to rest, and the plant will be less 

 subject to disease than if kept growing continuously 

 throughout the winter. At any rate, it is desirable that 

 the young plants be established in the boxes by the first 

 of March, that they may be removed to the cold frame 

 early in April and become sufBciently hardened to be 

 planted out between the 20th of Api'il and the first of 

 May. The planting time should be as early as the 

 ground can be worked, and danger of severe frost is 

 over. If taken at once from a greenhouse, they would 

 be injured by the least frost, but if gradually hardened 

 in a cold frame, a slight frost will not injure them. 



SOIL FOR CARNATIONS. 



Although in selecting a soil for planting out carna- 

 tions, very light sand, heavy clay, or muck, should be 

 avoided, almost any average loam soil adapted to the 

 growing of vegetables will be suitable for the purpose. 

 Given a congenial climate, and a medium heavy loam 

 soil, with a proper supply of plant food, and an abun- 

 dance of moisture, but with good drainage, there will be 

 little trouble in growing carnations. The land should 

 be well enriched with decomposed manure, and deeply 

 plowed the previous fall, and in the spring plowed and 

 dragged smooth. If manure cannot be readily obtained, 

 one thousand pounds per acre of ground bone, or dis- 

 solved bone black, will help out. The rows may be as 

 narrow as one foot, or as wide as two and a half, or two 



