ON RAISING ERICAS FROM CUTTINGS. 207 



No insect has attacked the plant in the open air. The treatment 

 of this species in pots during summer and winter, is in all respects 

 as done to T. tricolorum, but I advise its culture in the open air. 



ARTICLE IX. 

 ON RAISING YOUNG PLANTS OF ERICAS FROM CUTTINGS. 



BY A CULTIVATOR OF EXOTIC PLANTS. 



From May to July I think is the most proper season for striking 

 the cuttings of Ericas, (Heaths,) as the young wood will by that 

 time be, in general, pretty far advanced in growth. 



The shoots of heaths, and bark thereof, are of such a thin wiry na- 

 ture when old, that it is nearly impossible to strike them in that 

 state, hence the many failures by people not aware of this circum- 

 stance, who most probably were in the habit of leaving more or less 

 old wood, to cuttings of every description ; and these, they very 

 naturally concluded, were to be put into the soil the grown plant 

 flourished best in ; so that except by mere chance, when they hap- 

 pened to put in a cutting moderately young, which sometimes vege- 

 tated, they found it a thing so precarious, and of such difficulty, as 

 to be induced to abandon the trial altogether. Others more perse- 

 vering, endeavoured to remedy these defects by a change of soil ; 

 substituting loam and younger cuttings ; but here a fresh difficulty 

 arose, by the cold nature of so strong a soil, rotting the tender cut- 

 tings, in many instances before they had time to vegetate ; as well 

 as the young fibres of such, as lived to produce them ; unless trans- 

 planted at an age, in which it was otherwise unadvisable to move 

 them ; by which many were also lost. 



By a series of observations it was found, that the old wood of these, 

 as well as many other plants, was by no means calculated to produce 

 roots; that the one soil was too light and unsubstantial to support the 

 tender green wood while devoid of roots, and the other too cold and 

 stiff for their nature to flourish in afterwards ; therefore, having 

 proved that the young wood succeeded best as cuttings, the only thing 

 to be looked for was a warm, open, yet partially retentive medium, 

 best calculated to obviate the above defects. A good deal depends, 

 in my opinion, on the choice of sand for this purpose ; many prefer 

 the whitest and finest they can procure; at all events pit-sand is the 

 most proper ; but from recent observations, I am inclined to think, 

 that its goodness does not depend so much on the colour, as the tex- 

 ture, a lively vegetating sand being, in my opiuion, preferable to that 

 of a. dead, fine, binding nature, be it ever so white; but it should be 



