130 ON THE CULTURE OF THE CAMELLIA. 



least, no more must be removed than is absolutely necessary to 

 allow of the cuttings being firmly fixed in the sand. After the 

 pots are filled they should be placed in a shady part of the green- 

 house for five or six weeks, and then, if convenient, they should 

 be plunged in a gentle hotbed ; — a bark bed will do, but not quite 

 so well. By their, thus, having bottom heat, they will strike root 

 in one half the time they would do, if left in the house. As soon 

 as rooted they should be potted off into small pots, and after- 

 wards kept, if possible, in a hotbed or hothouse, where they will 

 make fine strong wood, and be fit for use in fifteen or eighteen 

 months. 



Inarching, or grafting by approach, is generally resorted to 

 for the propagation of the Double Camellias, and not unfrequently, 

 grafting or budding. The former is by far the safest, and may be 

 performed during the summer and autumn, after the ripening of 

 the wood, or early in spring, before the plants begin to grow. 

 The scions may be cut from the parent plants in about eight weeks. 

 There is no necessity to use clay in the operation of inarching, 

 but if independent grafting be resorted to, clay must be used, and 

 the wood must be quite ripe. The method called side-grafting 

 is usually followed, but the tongue, if any, must be very small ; 

 in inarching, care must be taken not to cut the stock or scion 

 too deep. The grafted and budded plants, as soon as the opera- 

 tions of insertion and claying are finished, should be kept under 

 a hand-glass in the greenhouse, or in a cold frame, until the scion 

 or bud has grown for the first time, and not till then, can the 

 heads of the stocks be cut off, without great risk of failure, be- 

 cause an exuberance of sap is thus thrown into the scions or buds, 

 before they are established to receive it without injury, — just as 

 too great a supply of nutriment injures the infant of the human 

 race. Nor shoidd the ligatures or clay be removed before that 

 time, (these and the foregoing remarks are also applicable to 

 the young inarched plants) after which, all the plants should 

 have their tops nipped off, to two or three buds, or they may be 

 removed by inarching or grafting them, if it be wished to increase 

 the stock of the variety ; but unless one of these precautions be 

 followed, the plants will very probably run up with a single stem, 

 and instead of being bushy and pyramidal, will be loose and ram- 

 bling, and must eventually be cut down. The young plants after 

 being thus decapitated, should be treated if possible, in the same 

 manner as recommended above for the young stocks, viz. to be 



