THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE, 
277 
Carnations are somewhat expensive to purchase, and those who 
have a few plants, and are desirous of increasing their stock, should 
strike the cuttings in March or April. In purchasing at this season 
of the year, strong well-furnished plants must be selected, or they 
will not produce any flowers until next year. 
The undermentioned are the best at present in commerce, which 
may be obtained at a cheap rate ; — Garibaldi, purple ; Perfection, 
white flaked purple and crimson ; Queen of Whites, pure white ; 
ha Belle, the best of the white varieties. Dragon, Jean Bart, and 
Boule de Feu, are three good scarlet varieties. Souvenir de la Mal- 
maisoii, rosy flesh, is very large and fragrant. Prince of Orange and 
AsccU Yelloio are two robust-growing and perpetual-flowering pico- 
tees, Avith yellowish flowers edged with red. White Queen, white, and 
Miss Joliffe, deep pink, are both first-class, and in every way de- 
sirable in the smallest collection. The Flower of Eden, white, and 
Coccinea, crimson scarlet, are two fine forcing pinks, which do well 
in company with the c.arnations. 
ON STRIKING GERANIUMS. 
ljUNDREDS of fallacies there are which we must sweep 
away, but first and foremost let me destroy that dogma 
which says scarlet geraniums are best propagated in the 
full sun, without the aid of a drop of water. Geraniums 
may be propagated that way, and in fact almost any 
way. The man who would lose one per cent, of geranium cuttings 
this time of year, no matter by what process he might endeavour to 
root them, would scarcely deserve to be admitted into any garden, 
for fear his presence should prove fatal to vegetation. But because 
you can root geraniums, or because they will of themselves make 
roots under almost any circumstances, does not prove that mode of 
propagating to be the best which is most exhaustive of the sap of 
the stem, and most destructive of the leaves, by means of which 
alone the cutting must live until it has made roots. That system of 
propagating is the best which exhausts the cutting least, which by 
taxing it very slightly allows it to retain a certain portion of its 
initial vigour until it has made new roots, and is enabled once more to 
draw nourishment from the earth by a truly natural process. Nor is it 
true that it matters not how many joints long a cutting is, nor what 
length of time elapses between making the cutting and the cutting 
making roots. The more quickly it is rooted the better. If shaded, 
kept suitably moist, and assisted with a temperature consistent with 
its nature, any and every kind of cutting, whether of a succulent or 
an erica, a geranium or a begonia, will do much better, both in 
making roots and afterwards as a plant, than if put to all sorts of 
trials, and allowed to make roots, as it were, only by the skin of its 
teeth. Make all your cuttings of geraniums short ; two joints suf- 
fice — one joint in the soil, the other joint Avith its leaf out. Three, 
four, or five joints make nice plants, and you may, if you please, 
September. 
