138 



THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



method is to take cuttings of the young shoots in the month of July 

 and put in shallow pans and cover them with bell-glasses. Having 

 made an early speculation in all the new varieties, paying at the rate 

 of five to seven shillings per leaf for some of them (as for example, 

 £1 for a plant with only three or four leaves), we felt the importance 



of quickly increasing 

 them, and adopted a 

 method at once simple, 

 and which proved emi- 

 nently successful. Shal- 

 low pans were filled with 

 a mixture consisting of 

 about equal proportions 

 of loam, peat, sharp sand, 

 and potsherds broken to 

 the size of peas. Cut- 

 tings, an inch and a half 

 to two inches long, taken 

 from the young wood 

 before it was fully hard- 

 ened, and dibbled close to- 

 gether in this mixture and 

 covered with bell-glasses, 

 rooted quickly, and the 

 bell - glasses were re- 

 moved, and the young 

 plants were wintered with 

 ordinary greenhouse 

 treatment. The peculiar 

 mixture they were in pre- 

 vented damping off' in 

 winter (the mixture was 

 adopted for that purpose, 

 for the cuttings were 

 too costly to be put to 

 any risk), and in April 

 they were potted sepa- 

 rately and kept shut 

 rather close in frames for 

 a fortnight afterwards, 

 and were then put out of 

 doors, the pots plunged 

 to their rims in cocoa-nut 

 fibre, and after that they 

 pretty well took care of 

 themselves and grewfreely. 

 I^early all the plants of the new varieties sent out by the trade 

 have been grafted. This is a very simple method of multiplying 

 them, and the modus operandi is as follows : — Stocks are obtained by 

 pegging down the common aucubas in the month of May. Every 

 layer is tongued and soon makes roots. In September the rooted 



Fig, 4. 



