LIFE STORY OF A CARNATION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 18, 3 May 1911, Page 41

LIFE STORY OF A CARNATION.

"It’s your birthday, Dad, the twelfth of March,” said the little girl, as she gave him a small packet with “Prize Carnation Seed, Hand Fertilised,” printed upon the cover. “Thank you for a kind and thoughtful girlie; why, this is just the time to plant carnation seed.” And that very day I made my first start in life, when I saw Dad bore a few holes between the sides and bottom of a wooden box, about two feet square and eight inches deep, drain it by placing some wooden ashes at the bottom, and nearly fill it with moist sandy loam, mixed with a little fine black soil he scraped from the wood heap. He levelled the surface, made quite a number of dents—ten, I think—with his thumb from side to side in six rows, and I saw his little comrade knit her brows for a moment, then say, “You’ll want sixty seeds altogether. Dad.” I, a little black seed, was put in one of these thumb marks, and was surprised when Dad remarked: 'Only fifty-five seeds in the packet; it must be choice.” He sprinkled a pinch of the sandy loam over us, hardly enough to keep ourselves warm if it had been cold weather. Then we all got our first bath from the little girl’s toy wateringcan, which shed almost a spray (instead of a sudden rush that the big cans give), and did not disturb us in the least as we lay snugly in our tiny beds. A thick piece of brown paper was spread over us, then the box placed under the verandah in the shade. Every day or two we were watered in the same manner, and the piece of paper replaced. Nearly every one of us was peeping through by April, carrying on the tip of each leaf half of the shell of the seed, and as the brown paper was taken off now there was little Dad did which escaped our notice. He came along at the end of April, carrying what he called “carnation cuttings,” and was t?lling his little mate they had been pulled—not cut—from the lower part of a friend’s best plants; he clipped off some of the lower leaves, thrust the cuttings a few inches in a box of moist sand, then packed the sand as firmly as he could press it around each, and covered ficin with a sheet of glass. Dad said they would take root (if kept damp and the glass turned daily) in a month or six weeks. Each cutting was labelled, and they must have been extra good, judging by their names —Princess Alice, white, pencilled with red; Czarina, yellow, edged with crimson markings; la Goua.leuse, of dazzling white; Royal Sovereign. bright golden; and so on. I wondered if I should ever have a name as nice. There were two or three cuttings over, and Dad placed them in what lie said was the future carnation bed, one that was in, an open, sunny position, and had been manured freely last year for sweet peas, and since then was turn'-.l oyer three or four times. On this bed be threw handfuls of lim< and dug it in after a few days. Dad said it w.is a well-drained spot, which originally had been trenched. During April and May our box was placed in the open, and we grew vigorously until -cold June and colder July, when our growth almost ceased. In August Dad turned the bed over, and I watched him dig in it a dozen holes in a row, and each hole a foot and a-half apart. He placed a shovelful of well-rotted manure in each hole, and covered this with earth nearly to the top, and planted me with eleven others in these. Dad told the little girl the manure would be too strong at our roots just now, but as we grew larger plants we would reach down to it. The cuttings in the box had taken roof, and several of the largest were set in another row two feet away from us.

As each month passed, other seedling!) and cuttings were put out in the same fashion, most of them growing well, but a few withered and died, and were replaced by others. By November I was growing steadily, broadening out, and sending up stems bearing an abundance of buds. Several of the weaker stems Dad cut off, leaving only eight or nine, and all buds, except the top one and larger buds along the sides of the stems, were removed, which Dad called disbudding. Some lime was sprinkled over us every two weeks, also between

the rows for lime is greatly to our liking especially early in the morning of a fine day. The ground between h» was not neglected, being hoed and raked frequently. Three neat stakes were driven in the ground around us, and with thin wire or string we w_ere nk-ely supported. A little round swelling appeared on the leaves of some of us; it was rust, and every leaf so diseased waa cut off and burnt. Throughout this month and December we were well watered, and 1 watched Dad measure a teaspoonful of a rough-looking powder named sulphate of ammonia and dissolve it in a can holding two gallons of water, and give me about a pint of this every three weeks, but only after I had been first soaked With water. One evening, after a hot day, the little girl was looking at me, and called: “Daddy, look at this pretty carnation; it's just like the blossom of our peach tree.” "It is indeed,” exclaimed Dad, “and a very sweet perfume, too. I’m sure it is fully ■three inches across; it shall be called the Peach Blossom, my little churn." And so I was named, and I watched that tree anxiously many months until it bloomed early next spring, and, though it was pretty, I found I had nothing to feqr from even such a rival. —Triad in the Argus.