marked with scarlet and maroon, crimson bizarres marked with crimson and purple, and pink and purple bizarres marked with those two colours. The flakes have stripes of only one colour on the white ground; purple flakes are striped with purple, scarlet flakes with scarlet, and rose flakes with rose colour. The selfs, those showing one colour only, as white, yellow, crimson, purple, &c., are commonly called cloves.
The picotee has the petals laced instead of striped with a distinct colour; the subgroups are red-edged, purple-edged, rose-edged and scarlet-edged, all having white grounds; each group divides into two sections, the heavy-edged and the light-edged. In the heavy-edged the colour appears to be laid on in little touches, passing from the edge inwards, but so closely that they coalesce into one line of colour from 112 to 116 of an inch broad, and more or less feathered on the inner edge, the less feathered the better; the light-edged display only a fine edge, or “wire” edge, of colour on the white ground. Yellow picotees are a group of great beauty, but deficient in correct marking.
During the decade 1898–1908 a new American race of carnations became very popular with British growers. As the plants flower chiefly during the winter—from October till the end of March—they are known as “winter flowering” or “perpetual”; they are remarkable for the charming delicacy and colouring of the blossoms and for the length of the flower-stalks. This enables them to be used with great effect during the dullest months of the year for all kinds of floral decorations. These varieties are propagated by layers or cuttings or “pipings.”
“Marguerite” carnations are lovely annuals remarkable for their beautifully fringed blossoms. They are easily raised from seeds every year, and should be treated like half-hardy annuals.
What trade growers call “jacks” are seedling carnations with single flowers of no great value or beauty. Thousands of these are raised every year for supplying “grass” (as the foliage is called) to put with choicer varieties. Costermongers take advantage of the ordinary householders’ ignorance of plants by selling “jacks” as choice varieties at a high price.
Carnations are usually propagated by “layering” the non-flowering shoots about the second or third week in July, in the open air; but almost at any period when proper shoots can be obtained under glass. Cuttings or “pipings” are also inserted in rich but very gritty soil in cold frames, or in beds with gentle bottom heat in greenhouses. The rooted layers may be removed and potted or planted out towards the end of September, or early in October, the choice sorts being potted in rather small pots and kept in a cold frame during winter, when damp is dangerous.
New varieties can only be obtained from carefully saved seeds, or when a “sport” is produced—i.e. when a shoot with a flower differing entirely in colour from that of the parent plant appears unexpectedly. “Malmaison” carnations arose in this way, and are largely cultivated in greenhouses.
The soil for carnations and picotees should be a good turfy loam, free from wireworm, and as fibry as it can be obtained; to four parts of this add one part of rotten manure and one of leaf-mould, with sufficient sharp sand to keep it loose. A moderate addition of old lime rubbish will also be an advantage. This should be laid up in a dry place, and frequently turned over so as to be in a free friable condition for use towards the end of February or early in March.
Carnations are subject to several diseases, the worst being the “rust” (Uromyces Caryophilinus), “leaf-spot” and maggot. The first two are checked or prevented by spraying the plants with sulphide of potassium (1 oz. to 10 gallons of water), taking care to avoid the painted woodwork; while the only way to deal with the carnation maggot is to pierce the centre of attacked plants with a needle, and to destroy the eggs whenever they are observed.
Descriptive lists of the best varieties may be had from all the leading nurserymen.
CARNEA, one of the great national festivals of Sparta, held in
honour of Apollo Carneus. Whether Carneus (or Carnus) was
originally an old Peloponnesian divinity subsequently identified
with Apollo, or merely an “emanation” from him, is uncertain;
but there seems no reason to doubt that Carneus means “the
god of flocks and herds” (Hesychius, s.v. Κάρνος), in a wider
sense, of the harvest and the vintage. The chief centre of his
worship was Sparta, where the Carnea took place every year
from the 7th to the 15th of the month Carneus (= Metageitnion,
August). During this period all military operations were suspended.
The Carnea appears to have been at once agrarian,
military and piacular in character. In the last aspect it is
supposed to commemorate the death of Carnus, an Acarnanian
seer and favourite of Apollo, who, being suspected of espionage,
was slain by one of the Heraclidae during the passage of the
Dorians from Naupactus to Peloponnesus. By way of punishment,
Apollo visited the army with a pestilence, which only
ceased after the institution of the Carnea. The tradition is probably
intended to explain the sacrifice of an animal (perhaps a later
substitute for a human being) as the representative of the god.
The agrarian and military sides of the festival are clearly distinguished. (1) Five unmarried youths (Καρνεᾶται) were chosen by lot from each [tribe] for four years, to superintend the proceedings, the officiating priest being called ἀγητής (“leader”). A man decked with garlands (possibly the priest himself) started running, pursued by a band of young men called σταφυλοδρόμοι (“running with bunches of grapes in their hands”); if he was caught, it was a guarantee of good fortune to the city; if not, the reverse. (2) In the second part of the festival nine tents were set up in the country, in each of which nine citizens, representing the phratries (or obae), feasted together in honour of the god (for huts or booths extemporized as shelters compare the Jewish feast of Tabernacles; and see W. Warde Fowler in Classical Review, March 1908, on the country festival in Tibullus ii. 1). According to Demetrius of Scepsis (in Athenaeus iv. 141), the Carnea was an imitation of life in camp, and everything was done in accordance with the command of a herald. In regard to the sacrifice, which doubtless formed part of the ceremonial, all that is known is that a ram was sacrificed at Thurii. Other indications point to the festival having assumed a military character at an early date, as might have been expected among the warlike Dorians, although some scholars deny this. The general meaning of the agrarian ceremony is clear, and has numerous parallels in north European harvest-customs, in which an animal (or man disguised as an animal) was pursued by the reapers, the animal if caught being usually killed; in any case, both the man and the animal represent the vegetation spirit. E. H. Binney in Classical Review (March 1905) suggests that the story of Alcestis was performed at the Carnea (to which it may have become attached with the name of Apollo) as a vegetation drama, and “embodied a Death and Resurrection ceremony.”
The great importance attached to the festival and its month is shown in several instances. It was responsible for the delay which prevented the Spartans from assisting the Athenians at the battle of Marathon (Herodotus vi. 106), and for the despatch of a small advance guard under Leonidas to hold Thermopylae instead of the main army (Herodotus vii. 206). Again, when Epidaurus was attacked in 419 by Argos, the movements of the Spartans under Agis against the latter were interrupted until the end of the month, while the Argives (on whom, as Dorians, the custom was equally binding), by manipulating the calendar, avoided the necessity of suspending operations (see Grote, Hist. of Greece, ch. 56; Thucydides v. 54).
See S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte (1893), and article “Karneios” in Roscher’s Lexikon; L. Couve in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquites; W. Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen (1883), p. 170, and Wald- und Feldkulte (2nd ed., 1905), ii. 254; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iv. (1907); G. Schömann, Griechische Altertümer (ed. J. H. Lipsius, 1902); J. G. Frazer on Pausanias, iii. 13, 3; H. Usener in Rheinisches Museum, liii. (1898), p. 377; J. Vürtheim in Mnemosyne, xxxi. (1903), p. 234.
CARNEADES (214–129 B.C.), Greek philosopher, founder of
the Third or New Academy, was born at Cyrene. Little is
known of his life. He learned dialectics under Diogenes the
Stoic, and under Hegesinus, the third leader of the Academy in
descent from Arcesilaus. The chief objects of his study, however,
