FOEEIGN NOTICES. 



Propagation and Tre.\tment of Bedding-Out Plants. — Of the thousand and one operations that 

 make up the sum of garden routine, each bears a connexion, more or less evident, with every other. 

 In duly recognizing such a connexion, and in exercising the necessary amount of forethought to 

 carry it out, rests much of the success in a horticultural campaign. And it is from the fact of 

 the existence of this connexion that gardening rises superior to a mere mechanical art, which 

 requires only the rule and compasses for its successful practice. 



Nor is this connexion of operations less worthy of recognition in small than in large gardens^ 

 The amateur, with a few rods of ground and a pit of half-a-dozen lights, has equal necessity for 

 the practical appreciation of the truth with the conductor of the most complicated establishment. 

 The success of either in a great measure depends on it. 



To the immediate subject of these papers it is especially applicable. The preservation through 

 the winter of store-pots of soft- wooded young plants, depends in a great degree on their previous 

 treatment. Every gardener knows what havoc, even with the most careful attentions, is every 

 season perpetrated among his beddiug-stock. With inferior management how much is the evil 

 augmented ! 



The daily increasing demand on the head and hands of the gardener, as winter approaches, often 

 delays the due attention to propagating matters until weeks after they should have been com- 

 pleted. These delays involve much subsequent vexation and disappointment, and which are 

 purchased, too, at the expense of no mean amount of labor, and from these causes. 



Cuttings, if required to produce healthy, sturdy plants, cannot be chosen with too much atten- 

 tion to their soundness and perfect organization. It is true, certainly, that almost every portion 

 of many plants will produce a duplicate. But then such plants ! You may, for the sake of 

 argument, parody a line from a well-known satire, and insist that 



"A plant's a plant, although there's no strength in it." 



But few persons will insist that there are not various degrees of constitutional vigor in plants as 

 in animals. And I hold it to be equally true, that to expect the same degree of perfection in 

 differently constituted plants, of the same species even, is as futile as to suppose that all men are 

 capable of a like degree of intellectual or phj^sical display. There is a homely proverb that teaches 

 us not to expect success in attempting the manufacturing process of converting a sow's ear into 

 a silk purse. 



Little less hopeless is that of attempting a high degree of development with weakly constitu- 

 tions or diseased plants ; and plethoric or half-ripened cuttings are not the kind of shoots to 

 produce healthy ones. I am aware that the truth of these remarks is not universally admitted ; 

 yet I believe them to be correct, and to demand a much greater attention than is given to them 



But, independent of other considerations, cuttings procured from the open borders late in 

 autumn are, as a general rule, deficient in the necessary qualities for producing plants capable of 

 combating the untoward influences of winter, even when good accommodation can be afforded 

 them. And when it is otherwise, which it must be confessed is the rule rather than the excep- 

 tion, the result is still worse. In fine, too much attention to the selection of proper cuttings 

 cannot possibly be paid. By exercising due discrimination, time and labor are economized, and 

 the resiilts reaped are more satisfactory. 



As the greater number of bedding-out plants have to be wintered in their cutting-pots, a 

 considerable share of attention should be given to render them in a condition to withstand damp 

 and frost. Growth during the winter months should not be aimed at ; to retain them in good 

 health is all that is reqiiired. Before placing them in their winter quarters, they should be 

 placed imder such condition as will enable them to become ripened and well established at root ; 

 and when finally stored, all immature growths should be removed with a sharp knife, and any 



d or weakly plants destroyed. Nor should the young plants be allowed to crowd 

 other too much ; better to remove a few than to lose the greater portion by damp and mild 



