TREATMENT OF THE CARNATION. 
197 
care should be taken of the styles, because their function con¬ 
tinues long after the act of impregnation. The seeds should be 
thoroughly ripened, which is known by the firmness of the seed 
vessels, and their becoming dark brown or black. The seed 
should remain to dry in the pods till about the first of January, 
when it may be rubbed out and kept in a paper bag or a bottle. 
Toward the middle of April is the time for sowing. This should 
be done in shallow twenty-four sized pots, or in shallow pans ; 
the compost not quite so rich as that generally used, but very 
finely pulverized. The surface of this should be made level, the 
seeds put in, a quarter of an inch of the fine compost put over 
them, and the surface should again be levelled. They then should 
be covered with glasses, of which common window glass in lead 
frames is the best, and the glasses should be kept on till the 
young plants appear. Even after this, the seedlings ought not to 
be stimulated with too much water, because that makes them 
spindle up and flower prematurely, in which state there are few 
branches of grass, which branches are always the most valuable 
part to the grower of Carnations. The seeds are apt to spurt in 
the formation ; and these spurtings are rarely for the better; and 
this, with the extreme rarity of good seedlings, and the fact that 
they are two years in flowering, and all this time and the atten¬ 
tion may be thrown away upon rubbish, are much against this 
mode of breeding. 
Piping and layering are preferable ; because the qualities of 
the plants are already known, and they come sooner into flower, 
and are less liable to spurt. Pipings, or cuttings, should be taken 
off about the beginning of July, but not to such an extent as to 
impoverish the appearance of the parent plants ; for if they look 
poor from excessive cutting, the chance is that they will not 
flower so well. It is of advantage too, that the cuttings should 
be taken off before the flowering has so much advanced as that 
the proper growth of the plant is weakened ; because it is this 
growth, and not flowering growth, which is essential to the 
cutting. Thus, early cuttings get more fully established, and 
can stand the winter better than late cuttings or layers. The 
cuttings should be taken square off immediately below a joint, 
and trimmed to about three joints in length. The grass at the 
lower joint should be carefully stripped off, and even a little higher 
than this if the joint is short; for if any part of the grass is buried 
