THE FLORIST’S LETTER-BOX. 
139 
best season for repotting I find is immediately after flowering, 
though I never do it till the pot is quite full of roots * The best 
soil is a mixture of peat and sand. The peat should be free and 
rich ; and in potting place a few rough pieces at the bottom of the 
pot, over the potsherds, of which there should be a good quan¬ 
tity. The sand should be silver sand ; no other kind is fit ; and 
about a third of the quantity of peat used in mixing. Run them 
through a coarse sieve, and then stir them together with the 
hand till the whole appears of a greyish colour. In potting, shake 
the earth well into the roots, pressing it down firmly with the 
finger and thumb ; and give a gentle watering. 
This is about the whole of the treatment necessary, and which, 
if a “ New Subscriber” adopts, I doubt not his plants will 
recover, towards which he has the best wishes of 
R. Plant. 
THE FLORISTS LETTER-BOX. 
ON THE PROPAGATION OF CARNATIONS AND PINKS. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
Although there is nothing new in these remarks, still, as the following 
mode of propagation of these flowers is seldom recommended in any directions 
for their cultivation, I may perhaps be excused for writing a few lines upon so 
hackneyed a subject. 
My stock of Pinks is small, and it is therefore an object to me to raise as 
many by pipings as I can. I endeavoured for one or two years to strike the 
pipings, cut off at a joint, under a hand-glass in the shade; but I found my 
attempts were not attended with success : the slugs and worms made sad 
havoc with some, and damp destroyed many others; add to this a soil not 
well calculated naturally for growing the Pink, and it will be no wonder that 
my stock rapidly decreased. This made me more chary of what were left, and 
I therefore determined to try some other method. I made a hole in the 
bottom of a flower-pan, which was about an inch and a half in depth, for 
drainage, and then filled the pan with equal parts of sand and light rich soil. 
Having cut my pipings with a sharp knife at a joint in the usual manner, I 
inserted them in the soil, and gave them a good watering to settle them, and 
placed the pan on the flue of a pit. In winter, I gave them no more water 
than served to keep them in health ; and when April came, I found that I bad 
not lost one piping. At the beginning of that month, I transplanted them 
into the border: they had formed good roots, and were bushy, and not at all 
drawn up; the latter circumstance may, I think, be attributed to the roots 
