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STOVE AND GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 



ARTICLE II. 



ON STRIKING CUTTINGS OF STOVE AND GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 



BY MR. THOMAS ROGERSON, DALE COTTAGE, WATERFORD, IRELAND. 



Besides the usual supply of the different sorts of earth, &c. there ia 

 another article necessary to be provided before we begin the business 

 of making cuttings; which is, a few dozen of small bell glasses, (the 

 white glass is best,) of as many different sizes, as are the pots in 

 which the cuttings are intended to be planted ; they should be fitted 

 to the pot so as to rest on the inner side of it, about an inch below 

 the rim ; by observing which circumstance, when the pot is filled 

 with earth, the glass will have room sufficient to sink a little into it, 

 so as to perfectly exclude the external air, which is of very essential 

 importance to the cutting while in a dormant state, that is, from the 

 time they are put in, until they begin to grow. Or they may be 

 covered by means of a flat piece of glass being placed over the top 

 of the pot, the cuttings being inserted low enough in the pot to ad- 

 mit of it being done without the points touching the glass. I prefer 

 this method to the former. 



The cuttings of stove and greenhouse plants may, with pretty 

 tolerable success, be made almost every season of the year : yet, from 

 April to August is certainly the most proper; as the plants are at 

 that season plentifully supplied with young wood, which in most 

 species, that I am acquainted with, produce roots when made into 

 cuttings much sooner, than the old wood will if used in the same 

 manner. When the day is fixed upon for this business, let a quantity 

 of pots of the proper size be prepared; I seldom use larger than those 

 at one shilling, or for the largest cuttings, those at one shilling and 

 six-pence per dozen, or as they are generally called forties, and 

 forty -eights. They must be drained in the manner already directed 

 for seeds, for the purpose of keeping the bottom of the pot as free from 

 stagnated water as possible ; and then, as wanted, about half filled 

 with the compost best suited to the plant intended to be propagated, 

 to grow in for a few weeks, when first struck, and the remaining part 

 with the best loam that can be procured, to insert the cutting in when 

 ready. On the purity and clearness of the loam, I think, depends in 

 a great*measure the success of many of the tenderer kinds of cuttings; 

 particularly those which are obliged to be kept in moist heat, as it is, 

 when contaminated with other composts very liable in these situations 

 to cause damp and rottenness, by the particles of putrifying matter 

 generally contained in mixed earths; and the properties of which are 





