PROPAGATION OF TREES AND SHRUBS. 



40; 



the branches of a medium sized plant, if 

 cut up into the smallest pieces for cuttings, 

 will afford but a moderate stock ; but when, 

 in addition to this, it is turned out of the 

 pot, and the earth carefully shook out from 

 among the roots, and the greater portion of 

 those cut into pieces of an inch long, each 

 of which will make a plant, those will add 

 materiall)' to the stock in the same time; 

 while the plant may be re-potted, and will 

 soon recover again, and make new roots and 

 branches. 



The best season to prepare roots for pro- 

 pagation in this way, is the spring, for all 

 hardy plants, and spring and early summer 

 for pot plants. The best moment, is that 

 when a plant manifests the first disposition 

 of being excited into growth. Roots, pre- 

 pared as above directed, of the more hardy 

 and vigorous growing kinds of trees and 

 shrubs, may be planted out in rows in the 

 open ground. The soil being made mellow 

 and deep, the roots should be planted so as 

 to leave the upper end of the cutting just 

 level with the surface of the ground. If the 

 root cuttings are planted in rows running 

 east and west, they may be shaded with ad- 

 vantage, for,a few weeks at first, by aboard 

 set up on the south side of the row. This 

 will usually ensure the growth of all roots, 

 cuttings of the hardier trees and shrubs. 

 Those not so easily excited into growth in the 

 above way, had better be planted under 

 frames or hand glasses in the open ground, 

 and kept close until they begin to grow, 

 when they should have air occasionally, as 

 the weather may permit, gradually increas- 



ing it, until finally the light or sash can be 

 dispensed with; the more tender kinds of 

 shrubs and plants should be planted in frames 

 or hand-glasses, on hot-beds, either planted in 

 the earth placed directly on the hot-bed, or in 

 boxes, or shallow flower pots placed on the 

 hot-bed in the frame, to be attended to as 

 regards air, &c., as above ; cuttings of the 

 roots of hot-house and green-house plants, 

 should always be planted in pots, the top or 

 upper end of the root even with the surface 

 of the earth as before, and should be kept 

 in the hot-bed, hot-house, green-house, or 

 propagating house, as may be most conven- 

 ient, and shall appear most congenial to the 

 kind of plant to be thus increased. 



A. Saul. 



Newburgh, January, 1S47. 



[The above brief hints on a mode of pro- 

 pagating trees and plants which is but little 

 practiced in the United States, will no doubt 

 be acceptable to some of our amateurs, or 

 to young gardeners who have not yet mas- 

 tered the important details of propagation. 

 Some shrubs and trees seldom bear seeds, and 

 emit roots very slowly by layers, and hence 

 are not half so general in our ornamental 

 plantations as they deserve to be. We may 

 point to that bright and pretty shrub, the 

 Japan Quince, [Cydonia japonica,) as a case 

 in point. We have seen one gardener la- 

 bor for years to raise a dozen new plants of 

 this shrub, by the ordinary method of /ai/er5; 

 while another, from bits of the roots taken 

 ofl^the parent plant without injury toil, has 

 propagated an hundred, in a single season. 

 Ed.] 



51 



