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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and leave the smoke-fiend to wonder at Lis moderation towards 

 ns. If the townsman cannot, like his country cousin, go into his 

 garden and roam among countless species from China to Peru, 

 his interest and pleasure are none the less real and keen because 

 centred on fewer subjects, many of them being of the most 

 marked individuality and character. 



Quite in the fore-front among our garden favourites as a 

 townsman's flower is the subject of the present paper. In its 

 origin a mountain plant, to which pure air, and plenty of it, 

 might be expected to be a first necessity, its patient endurance of 

 the smoke-laden atmosphere of our great towns is most remark- 

 able. The collection of Messrs. Veitch at Chelsea and the 

 Cloves growing and flowering luxuriantly on the Embankment 

 gardens at Charing Cross will occur in this connection to many 

 lovers of the flower. In the still more trying situations of 

 small town gardens the Carnation is equally at home. At 

 Sheffield, in one of the worst climates conceivable, in the midst 

 of factories of every description, Mr. Simonite has raised some 

 of the most exquisite flowers we possess ; and all Mr. Dodwell's 

 finest seedlings, up to the time of his removal to Oxford eight 

 years ago, were raised in a small garden within ten minutes' 

 ride of Victoria Station. Indeed the bulk of our exhibitors at 

 the three great shows in London, Oxford, and Manchester are 

 amateurs with small gardens, working under all the disadvantages 

 of adverse climate, cramped space, and scant leisure snatched 

 from busy occupations of every sort. 



Now the Carnation is propagated by seed and by cuttings, or 

 " pipings," as they are termed. These latter are usually taken 

 from the plant early in July. It is also propagated from layers, 

 which are put down about the latter end of July or beginning 

 of August, as the plant is going out of flower. But, in detailing 

 briefly the culture of the plant , I shall assume the case of one taking 

 it up for the first time; and as he would presumably desire to set 

 out with varieties of known excellence, his best course would be to 

 obtain plants from the nurseryman in the autumn, say early in 

 October, at which time the layers put down in July have become 

 rooted and ready to detach from the old plants. Having got in his 

 plants, his next consideration will be how they shall be wintered. 

 There are those who will tell him that the Carnation being by 

 nature a thoroughly hardy plant, it may, and in fact ought to be, 



