456 



NOTES ON PROrAGATING BY CUTTINGS. 



and experience. If any part of the operations 

 of cultivation can be called empirical it is this. 

 And yet the operator is not without rules to 

 guide him in this adjustment; the misfor- 

 tune is, that they are too general. 



The softer a cutting, the quicker must be 

 the excitement and application of the forma- 

 tive process, the more light, the smaller the 

 quantity of water. The more hard and 

 woody a cutting, the slower will be the op- 

 eration, the more feeble the light, the great- 

 er the quantity of water. If these condi- 

 tions of new growth can but be preserved, 

 all cuttings of all plants may be converted 

 into new individuals. 



The great enemies of the propagator, 

 says Mr. Neumann, are rotting and drj'ing; 

 for this reason cuttings are preserved in the 

 midst of a temperature and humidity al- 

 ways equal, the evaporation of the soil is 

 hindered, and the perspiration of the cut- 

 tings is prevented. 



Heat, light and moisture being thus 

 shown to be the agents to whose assistance 

 Ave must look for success, and by whose 

 mismanagement the hopes of the gardener 

 are ruined, it is of the first importance to 

 determine how each can be best and most 

 efficiently controlled. 



And first of heat. 



We know that plants are distributed over 

 all parts of the habitable globe ; that in 

 neighboring countries the species are near- 

 ly alike, that distant countries are clothed 

 with vegetation of entirely different kinds, 

 and that the distinction in the vegetation is 

 in proportion to the distance of the countries 

 from each other. There is not, perhaps, a 

 dozen species in Normandy that do not grow 

 wild on this side of the Channel ; there is 

 not a dozen species common to England and 

 Bengal. Species, in fact, are in general 

 limited by similarity of temperature, and 

 cannot exist beyond such limits. One of the 



first considerations for the propagator, there- 

 fore, is what amount of heat is natural to a 

 species during its season of growth. With 

 less than that it is hopeless to make cuttings 

 grow. It is only when plants strike freely 

 that the natural amount of heat is sufficient; 

 in general they require more. The amount 

 of heat found in their natural climate may 

 be enough for them to grow in ; but a great- 

 er degree of excitement, by means of a 

 higher temperature, will be demanded by 

 them to strike root in, when cut up into the 

 fragments called cuttings. A Willow cut- 

 ting stuck into the open ground will strike 

 root, but it does so much faster and more 

 vigorously if placed in a hotbed. A White- 

 thorn cutting in the open ground will not 

 root at all ; in a warm propagating house, it 

 will do so readily : and to reverse the il- 

 lustration, cuttings of tropical plants, which 

 naturally enjoy a very high temperature, 

 will perish if it is reduced, and will only 

 put forth roots when it is raised consider- 

 ably above their natural standard. Thus 

 Mr. Neumann mentions that Nutmegs, Gua- 

 iacum. Mangoes, &c., will not succeed un- 

 less in a temperature of about 100° Fah. 

 That degree of heat, again, would be fatal 

 to green-house plants. 



But it is not the temperature of the at- 

 mosphere that requires to be maintained 

 above that to which plants are naturally 

 subject : it is the soil that must be warmed. 

 The first object is to obtain roots; those or- 

 gans once formed, leaves will follow. The 

 vital action which causes the production of 

 roots is, in the first instance, local ; roots are 

 produced by the development of the cellu- 

 lar matter of the underground part ; that 

 cellular matter requires to be stimulated by 

 unusual warmth; but the necessary stimu- 

 lus cannot be communicated by a heated 

 atmosphere : it is the warmth of the soil in 

 which the cellular matter lies buried that 



