ON LAYING CARNATIONS, &c. 195 



facility with which the kinds may be increased and kept, all 

 combining to give them claims to be admitted into every 

 flower garden, or as highly ornamental to the greenhouse or 

 conservatory, in summer, when grown in pots. The kinds may 

 be forwarded at a cheap rate, and when once obtained, an 

 abundance may be kept in future. Each of the kinds are pro- 

 lific in offsets, and such being taken off the old plants 

 in autumn, and potted into small pots in a sandy soil, and 

 be kept in a cool frame, cool room or greenhouse through win- 

 ter, or taking up the old plants at the end of the blooming sea- 

 son entire, putting each into a large pot, and preserving as 

 above stated, throughout whiter, the offsets will be numerous, 

 and strong, and may be potted and separated, &c. in March, and 

 by being forwarded a little, will be the better for turning out 

 the end of April or early in May. We prefer leaving the offsets 

 to the mother plant till spring, for when taken off late in autumn, 

 not having an opportunity of striking root before winter, often 

 perish. In either case, the plants require very little water 

 during the winter season. — Conductor.) 



ARTICLE II. 



ON LAYING CARNATIONS, &c. 



BY FLORA. 



I like Mr. Slater's article on the Tulip, very well, the hints of 

 Practical Florists are always valuable. Your correspondent 

 Pomona has laid down minutely the operation of laying Carna- 

 tions, but there is one part of his system which is decidedly bad, 

 I mean the old, (and I had hoped the exploded) method of cutting 

 through the joint and one half or three quarters of an inch above 

 it; the reason he gives for this is, like the celebrated question of 

 King Charles to the Royal Society, founded upon a position that 

 does not exist. It assumes if the slit was not made, the shoot 

 would grow as nothing of the kind had happened. Now this from 

 seven years experience I know to be false ; the layers root equally 

 well without the slit, and the plants are much more hardy, being 

 in fact the same as a piping. The incision should reach up to the 

 joint, but not into it, and be cut off close to it, as should the other 

 side when taken from the mother plant. I never saw the differ- 

 ence more fully exemplified than in the late unfavourable winter 

 and spring. Of my own plants layered in the above manner I lost 

 not above one in fifty, whilst of those I received from different 



