NEUMANN ON RAISING PLANTS FROM CUTTINGS. 



Perhaps the best work on propagating 

 plants by this means, is a little volume pub- 

 lished in Paris, entitled " Notions sur I'art de 

 faire les Boutures," by M. Neumann, the 

 well known chief of the hot-house department 

 of the Garden of Plants. We shall give in 

 our succeeding numbers, commencing with 

 the following article, a translation of the most 

 important part of this little work, so useful to 

 the plant cultivator. 



No. I. GrENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. — 



The Creator has willed that plants should 

 multiply themselves by their seeds ; but man, 

 still more to increase the riches of the vege- 

 table kingdom, as if he found himself in too 

 narrow a compass, incessantly assists Nature, 

 whether he evokes the mysteries of artificial 

 fecundation, or propagates species by grafts, 

 layers, or cuttings. This last method of pro- 

 pagation has arrived at such importance in 

 our days, that I have thought it my duty to 

 to state the nature of the proceedings which 

 practice, and a long study of the numerous 

 plants intrusted to my care, have suggested 

 to me. A cutting, properly speaking, is a 

 part of a plant which, being detached, is 

 placed in the ground, where, under the influ- 

 ence of different circumstances, it ought to 

 develop itself, and produce an individual simi- 

 lar to the parent plant. Monocotyledonous 

 plants will only strike by cuttings from their 

 branches ; but dycotyledonous plants offer for 

 propagation, so to speak, all the parts which 

 compose them — roots, branches, trunks, or 

 portions of them, herbaceous shoots, and 

 leaves. With but few exceptions plants struck 

 by cuttings demand constant attention ; a 

 temperature and moisture proportioned to the 

 nature of the subject are the conditions which 

 ought especially to engage the attention of 

 the operator ; for the principal precaution is, 

 to secure the cuttings at the same time from 

 rotting and drying. With this end in view 

 v.-e keep them in media of equal temperature 

 and moistui-e ; we prevent evaporation of the 

 soil, and arrest the perspiration of the cut- 

 tings. Plants which are soft-wooded, or have 

 vp'f^ i:>llular tissue, such as Malvaceae, Ge- 



raniacese, Solanaceae, and others, take root 

 more easily, and demand less precaution, than 

 the delicate, resinous, milky, hard and dry- 

 wooded species. Cuttings of the greater part 

 of the hardy ornamental plants suited to the 

 climate of Paris, will strike in the open air, if 

 they are protected from winds and currents o£ 

 hot air. Others are struck in pots upon ex- 

 hausted hot-beds, or in a pit not much raised 

 and ventilated. Finally, cuttings of exotics, 

 able to grow only under the influence of a 

 heat which reminds them of the conditions 

 among which they naturally live, strike root 

 in glass-houses made on purpose, or are 

 placed, agreeably to their nature, either in a 

 hot-house or green-house. 



No. II. Soil proper for Cuttings. — 

 Different sorts of trees do not root equally 

 well in all soils. There are some cuttings 

 which can scarcely be made to succeed in 

 saline earth, while others succeed in it very 

 well. The soils considered the best foi- 

 striking cuttings in the open air, are those 

 which are free, sandy, and soft to the touch ; 

 of Fontenay-aux-Iloses, for example, of C la- 

 mart, or of Massy. Tamarix elegans and T. 

 germanica prosper in a soil rich in saltpetre ; 

 but the Giugko and Poplars cannot strike in 

 it ; these last succeed at Fontenay-aux-Iloses. 

 Cuttings made in glass-houses generally re- 

 quire to be planted in earth mixed with peat 

 in preference to any other, but varied ac- 

 cording to the nature of the plant. What- 

 ever composition we use, we must take care 

 not to employ it too dry or too moist ; in the 

 first case, the earth not being able to sustain 

 itself in a convenient manner around the cut- 

 ting, the latter fulls or is displaced when we 

 wish to water it; in the second case, the 

 earth being too compact, it hinders the forma- 

 tion of roots ; Nature makes vain efforts, and 

 the cutting suffers, decays, and dies, in spite 

 of its disposition to vegetate. 



No. III. Cuttings in the Open Air. — 

 All our deciduous trees, and many evergreens, 

 may be struck from cuttings in the open air, 

 by the same process as that employed in the 

 Colonies, if requisite care be taken. Thus in 

 our Colonies, where there are no glass-houses 

 for propagation, nor bell-glasses, I made cut- 

 I tings entirely in the open air, in a bed shaded 



