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An old Carnationist looks back 1951 Yearbook

An old Carnationist looks back By M. C. ALLWOOD, F.L.S., V.M.H.
There can be considerable joy in old age, more so I think than in youth, that is, provided you are blessed with good health. There is happiness and positive repose in standing to one side so that the younger ones can come into the fight. You enjoy watching these young people and their methods of approaching the difficulties of life. It is like the old Captain standing upon the bridge of a ship and letting the first mate take the helm. If you have trained him so well that you can trust his judgment, you will rest with complete assurance and let him do the worrying—so you rest upon the rails while the ship glides steadily into port. Of course, if you have no confidence in those you have placed in charge, it is, in all probability, your own fault. The secret of success of all the most successful Admirals and Generals has been the staff with which they have surrounded themselves, who in like manner depend upon the example they themselves set. This must be so in nearly every walk of life, getting the right type of people and training them so that they relieve you of undue care and worry in old age, when you can give yourself that licence in life of doing just as much, or as little, as you please.
Horticulture is very similar to agriculture inasmuch as you are dealing with living things. However, it is even more exacting, because if you are growing plants in greenhouses, they depend upon you primarily for everything : ventilation, moisture, food—and you must protect them from insect pests and diseases. However, if you have raised and developed these plants they should have strong constitutions, so that they more or less
resist the ordinary troubles of plant life. A well-trained grower will have developed a second sense or feeling for his plants, so that he knows his plants’ requirements in the matter of moisture, which relatively depends upon the season of the year and the weather at the time. All these details, with exceptions for freak seasons and rainy days, cannot be put into a book. Whatever you read (or I write), a lot must be left to the judgment of the man in charge.
That is why the period of my life at seventy years is undoubtedly the happiest I have experienced. We have five separate nurseries and employ some 300 people, mostly country-bred. I am very proud to say that usually the male employees remain with us from boyhood, and the female employees until they marry (generally someone on our staff).
I have enjoyed these passing years, planning all the hundreds of various crosses, selecting the most promising seedlings and finally having the last word ; and after spending some fifty .years in doing these things, planning, selecting, deciding, I have developed a second sense of instinctively knowing what is best in Carnations, Pinks and Dianthus. There is no anxiety, worry or fatigue in doing it. You know a good Carnation, also a good man, and you endeavour to obtain both.
Age is nothing without memories. In youth you are too new to have thoughts worth recalling. You may think them wonderful, but without experience you are not able to gauge their importance. Very few young people have anything important to talk about or write about, and we elderly people may bore our friends with ours ; yet no one can rob us of the joy of recounting them. At any rate, the thought that it is so is pleasant, especially as you may be able to recollect the spice and thrill of past experiences. For instance, I shall never forget King Edward VII’s chuckle when I exchanged button-holes with him at Lincoln.
When the old recall their past experiences, then is revealed the wisdom of the old saying, ” A cobbler should stick to his last.” Every trader is at times tempted to venture upon some new departure, or side issue, from which quick and lavish returns look inviting. Personally I have always resisted such temptation of a quick fortune, because Nature seems to surrender her rewards to those who travel down the hard and narrow way.
I do not flatter myself that anyone wants to read the meanderings of an old man, least of all the young, who could perchance gain a little from the experiences of the old warrior who has looked for so many years upon the ever-changing face of the large Dianthus family.
If I have a virtue, it is the simple one of persistency ; so from my childhood up through the decades of life, Pink, Carnation and Dianthus (from the remote Alpine to the robust Giganteum) have satisfied not only my interests, but all my energies, with their varying whims and fastidious notions. But, quite privately, I always did realise what a large and glorious field lay before me. You should only listen to your own conscience and not be influenced or guided by those so-called clever people who claim to know more about your business than you do yourself. The looker-on may see most of thegame, but you know best how you intend to play the game, especially if it is the complex game of Dianthus, with its many branches, where you have to make your own rules. So in these latter years of life, I find them to be the best and happiest, rejoicing in growing old, with all its compensations of experiences and definite knowledge.
It is like the Captain of a ship who has sailed his barque round the world, but as he glides into his home port, he has to take a pilot on board—not that he needs the aid of a pilot to navigate the home port—but, like age, it is nature or rather the law. So I, the captain of my ship of destiny, enjoy leaning and resting upon the bridge, and while others do the work, I know and they know that I remain the captain of the ship, doing just as much and just as little as I wish. It is indeed a most enviable position, because you have the knowledge and experience behind you.
WATER
Every living thing requires water. Animals and plants demand absolutely pure water and we human beings likewise, when we return to what our grandparents knew, and refuse to have anything to do with the faked article supplied through miles of metal piping.
The procuring and supplying adequate quantities of the best and purest water, was one of our early struggles. Some was bought at a great price, other supplies were more economical.
Soil was another of the essentials which Nature and commonsense told us was a first necessity. So eventually we procured fields for an adequate supply of a standard mixture ; some fields were light, others medium, and of course, others Sussex clay. However, by preparing the soil in the fields, mainly mechanically, but also with the experience of years, the perfect compost was evolved—yet we always change the soil for each crop. But there is no substitute or scientific discovery which can replace the knowledge gained by experience and the test of time in varying seasons, even though it is not the cheap, but the expensive way.
Like water, there is no substitute for good soil ; it is one of Nature’s best gifts to man—so why not take full advantage from this common knowledge ? The same could be said about light and air, of which we happily get good supplies in the heart of Sussex.
NATURAL LAWS
The future of the Perpetual-flowering Carnation must rest upon its strength of constitution more than any other flower, simply because it is not only perpetually-flowering but, naturally, perpetually growing, so that it has no resting or dormant period to enable the plant to build up or recuperate its vitality and health ; consequently, once it becomes weakened, it remains weak, worn-out and useless. Fifty years ago this truth was fully recognised ; the digest of all this should be fully recognised and self-evident. We have seen in the past, promising novelties and new kinds spoilt by over-propagation . Work in harmony with Nature, which is the long term policy of good gardening and good farming.
The following is the new method which is being employed to induce choice varieties of the Perpetual-flowering Carnation to produce more cuttings.
First the advocates of this method plant the stock plants 8 inches by 8 inches in specially constructed greenhouses. Then the plants are fed with special chemical-forcing fertilisers ; in the Autumn and Winter they can give the plants additional artificial bottom-heat to force a rapid growth. They use powerful electric lights during the night in the propagating season, to induce the plants to make phenomenal growth during the twenty-four hours of the day. I am assured that as many as 100 to 150 cuttings of P. F. Carnations are produced per square foot of bench space, but it seems a very unnatural method of cultivation.
Another method is the practice of not changing the soil in which the plants are grown. This method lowers the vitality of the stock, but more than that, it makes a breeding ground for pests and diseases. The only way to keep plants healthy is by changing the soil in the greenhouse, or else by rotational cropping. When all is said and done, the rich soil of the earth is perhaps the greatest and best of all gifts to man, and unless a plant can grow naturally, in good soil, it is unreasonable to expect it to keep strong and healthy.