" W.," Sharon, Pa., writes: " We make the forcing of Carnations a specialty, and this fall when we lifted our plants, we noticed a good many that looked yellow and sickly, and unfit to plant on the benches. All that showed signs of disease we rejected, and we thought we had as fine a show for Carnations as any one could wish, but they have been dying out right along, and unless we can check the trouble, shall have to abandon that branch of our business. Will some reader of the Monthly who makes a specialty of forcing Carnations, suggest a remedy ? One man told us to try saltpeter ammonia, but we can't find any such article in our drug stores.

"Another suggested syringing the plants with ammonia water. In pinching back our young plants during the summer, we hold the plant with the left hand and pull the tops out, thus detaching them at the joints; and it is right at the joints that the trouble seems to be, or just below the joints rather, inside the stems; the pith seems to rot or rust like, and we thought perhaps this way of pinching them was what made them go as they do. We have never had any trouble of this kind until last winter, when we lost our entire crop of two thousand plants. We would like to hear from a number of Carnation growers as to their experience in this line, also about kind of soil used, how often it should be changed, temperature to force in, etc.

"Mr. John Murchie suggests that we quit striking our young plants from plants that have been forced, which we consider good advice. Any light that can be given through the Monthly will be duly appreciated".

[This is the well-known Carnation root fungus, and is one of the best illustrations known of the modern discovery that some forms of parasitic funguses will attack healthy vegetation. Its presence in a bed of Carnations in the open ground is detected by the practiced eye, by a slightly paler tint on one plant. In a few weeks a circle of a number of plants will show the pale tint, the fungus having spread from the one it originally fed on, to those around it. If examined with a pocket lens the fungus will be seen like small cobwebs over the growing fibres. The affected plants are taken out as soon as seen, for although the thread (mycelium) which propagates the plant is in the ground, like all plants it gathers strength by what it feeds on, and does not spread so easily when it is kept from its food. Pale plants are never taken into the house for forcing. There is hardly any use in attempting to combat the enemy after it has found a lodgment in the benches, as the injury has been mostly done before the plants are taken inside. However, if any of our correspondents know better, we should be glad of their experience.

Usually when the fungus gets into a stock, it is carried on by propagation, until it almost gets to be permanent, and then we hear that that variety is more subject than others. But it is only that propagation has been continued from a stock that that has caught the fungus. It is best to change one's stock sometimes, and much better to get new kinds from seed once in a while. These are for a time free from these troubles. - Ed. G. M].