MR. FOKSTTH ON GAME PRESERVES AND FENCES. 207 



have confirmed its truth. In the first place, then, I w^ould quote 

 a process of long standing, namely, the ringing of fruit-trees, 

 by which means the supplies being cut off, the branch elaborates 

 its juices more richly, and lives and bears fruit. The root- 

 pruning of fruit-trees is founded on the same principle, and the 

 effects produced are frequently astonishing. Grafting, and par- 

 ticularly herbaceous grafting, are subject to the same laws, the 

 sap being elaborated by the leaves, or by something acting in 

 that capacity, so long as the scion is maintained at the wound in 

 a uniform degree of moisture, and air is excluded by a compact 

 coat and bandage. Now, to obtain this compact binding, I had 

 recourse to the well-known process of washing common garden 

 earth or clay, or peat, so as to separate the sand and other hard 

 substances, and to leave a mass of fine, almost impalpable, par- 

 ticles, which readily compress into an exceedingly dense form. 



From experiments made long ago, I found that certain ma- 

 nures, wlien mixed with the puddle above described, acquired the 

 valuable property of retaining moisture for a long time when 

 buried under the surface of the soil ; and having thus secured 

 the necessary materials, the application of the principles was 

 easy ; for when the base of a scion is firmly embedded in a nest 

 where uniformity of moisture and seclusion from the air are 

 maintained, evaporation is prevented, and thus the green cutting 

 becomes enabled to stand the full sun immediately after its in- 

 sertion. Since it is well known that a healthy leaf thus exposed 

 must either die or work, the fruits of its labour will soon appear 

 in the formation of roots. Having been convinced from num- 

 berless experiments of the truth of this theory, I resolved last 

 year to get a labouring man to put in cuttings with his clasp- 

 knife and some dung and clay in an off-hand manner. I have 

 shown the plantation to many gardeners, and we have not seen 

 a failure of one scion in several hundreds done by this labouring- 

 man. 



The process, which is as follows, is performed when the sum- 

 mer shoots of the Laurel, Privet, &c., have attained a moderate 

 growth, say by the middle of June ; but of this any practical 

 gardener will judge correctly from his experience with other 

 kinds of propagation, when he is told that the leaves should be 

 firm and of their full size, and the wood plump and round, with 

 the bark of a bright colour ; the shoot, or rather a part of the 

 shoot, is at that time grown, but not ripened, and in this lies the 

 pith of the aflair. If the wood is too hard at the base it must 

 be cut off, and where it is too watery at the tip, that too must 

 be cut off ; the cutting must then be prepared as cuttings usually 

 are, by cutting off two of the lower leaves and smoothing the 

 base of the scion below the lowermost bud. The scions being 



