Earwigs prove very injurious, sometimes almost de structive to carnations. They should be daily looked for, hunted out, and destroyed. Numbers may be entrapped in dried hollow stalk of rhubarb, reeds, or similar fistular plants. Sonic have been at the pains to insulate the rais ed stage, by setting its supporters in vessels filled with water ; forgetting perhaps that earwigs occasionally take wing. When the flowers arc heavy and apt to droop, bits of fine brass-wire are used as supports. Zealous carna tion florists sometimes dress the flowers, by removing with a pair of pincers small or ill-coloured petals, and arranging the rest so as to hide the defect.
509. When the plants have passed the height of their bloom, layering must not be neglected. The lower leaves of the layers being stripped off, and the terminal leaves cropped, an incision is made below the second or third joint, and continued through the joint; the loose portion of stem below the cut joint is removed, so that the layer may bend freely. It is kept down by a slight peg of wood, or, what is more convenient and neat, of the brake-fern or pteris ; such fern pegs arc naturally formed in the stalk of the frond, and they decay of themselves when no longer needed. If the weather he dry, watering proves useful. In about a month most of the layers are found to be rooted, and may he transplanted, taking care not to plant too deep. Carnations may also be propagated by pipings; but this is a more difficult mode. The pipings being dressed, by cut ting about half a line below the second joint from the ex tremity of the shoot, and shortening the foliage as for lay ers, are placed in water fur some time, to plump them, as florists speak. They are then pricked into an exhausted hot-hed, and covered with hand-glasses. The soil is kept moist till fibres be sent out; but it is proper to observe, that after watering, the glass should not be replaced till the leaves of the pipings be dry. When they begin to shout upwards, air is regularly but cautiously admitted. Layers or pipings, when properly rooted, are removed, and, if choice kinds, generally planted in pots, three or four in each pot. For the winter season, carnations, whether young plants, or surviving mother plants, are best preserv ed in a repository similar to that commonly used for auri culas. Here they remain till after the middle of March, when they are placed in pots singly for flowering, as alrea dy mentioned.
It is of course only by means of seed that new varieties can be obtained. When it is wished that carnation plants
should perfect their seeds, they are removed from the can vas awning to a place completely exposed to the sun; or, in the northern part of the island, into an airy green-house ; and the plant is not mutilated, by making layers or pipings. It may be remarked, that plants recently raised from the seed, are themselves most productive of seed, and that varieties which have long been propagated by layers and cuttings, scarcely produce any. In flowers approach ing to the double state, but few seeds can in any case be expected, and these few often require to be fostered ; the withered petals are drawn out from the pod, leav ing the styles, or stigmata, which proceed from the top of the germen or seed-pod ; an incision is also some times made in the calyx down to the base of the ger men, so as to prevent any water from lodging there. The seed ripens in September, hut it is kept in the pod till April, when it is sown in pots. The young plants are afterwards transplanted into a bed, where they are allowed to show flower ; such as prove single-flowered, are cast out; and the best of the double flowers are layered.
It may here be noticed, that carnations are susceptible of the operation of grafting. A good double-flowered sort may be grafted on the stem of a healthy single kind ; the most woody part of the stalk is to be preferred, and whip grafting is best.
Polyanthus.
510. Of the fine genus Primula, several elegant species are natives of Britain. Every one is delighted with the appearance of the common primrose (P. vulgaris) on our banks in the spring time, and many are the varieties culti vated in gardens under the name of Polyanthus. The well known cowslip or paigle (P. officinalis) decks the pas tures and margins of corn fields, particularly in the south and west of England, and the gathering of the pips for the making of wine furnishes, in many places, a pleasing em ployment for children. The oxlip (P. elatior) is much less common than the cowslip, and is found chiefly in woods, and by the margins of woods. It seems to be the parent of se veral of the small-flowered polyanthuses. The bird's-eye primrose (P. farinosa) is certainly one of the prettiest na •ives we can boast, and it grows on the poorest moors. Of the exotic species, the auricula or beat's-ear (P. auricula) is a well known favourite, of which we shall speak, after treating of the polyanthus.