FLORICULTURAL GLEANINGS. 5 



rays then are also beginning to be shorn of their influence ; and the 

 consequence is, that the last layered plants are always indifferently 

 rooted when compared with those first pegged down. 



The operation of layering must be now so familiar to the readers of 

 the Cabinet, that for me to dwell upon it at any great length would 

 only be a waste of space. I will, however, just say that I am an 

 advocate for the old system, which I have always found to answer 

 very well. I either begin close below a joint, and cut perpendi- 

 cularly inwards till I reach the middle of the layer, and then turn 

 the knife and cut straight up through the joint, and about half an 

 inch further ; or I begin a little lower down, and enter gradually till 

 the blade reaches the centre at the under side of the joint, and so on 

 upwards; and then I cut off the sloping part close below the joint. 

 I then peg the layer down in a mixture of half fresh loam and half 

 river sand, covering the layer and peg about an inch deep, but leaving 

 the stem, from the peg to the bottom of the mother plant, quite bare. 

 I would impress upon " A Young Beginner " the necessity of covering 

 his layers very slightly, as the young fibres are no sooner emitted than 

 they run along almost immediately below the surface, and of course 

 the nearer they are left to the sun's rays the more benefit they will 

 derive from that influence. By pursuing this plan, he will find his 

 young plants, if layered about the end of July or the beginning of 

 August, fit to be potted about the end of September or the beginning 

 of October, and strong enough to lift a clod of earth an inch and 

 a-half in diameter at least, — a root sufficient to satisfy the most un- 

 reasonable florist. I find, on looking over the Cabinet, vol. vi., that 

 a person, signing " Humble Bee," from his "Hole in the Wall," 

 condemns this system, and very facetiously recommends florists to 

 abhor it as they would a wireworm or an earwig ; and, instead of it, 

 recommends them not to cut through the joint, but merely up to it ; 

 but I must say that if " Humble Bee " would venture a little further 

 from his hole, and fly a little more about among his brother florists, 

 I think he would find that the system which he repudiates so strongly 

 is still almost generally practised by florists, which I think he must 

 admit is one of the very best proofs of its safeness. For my part I 

 am quite satisfied with it, and therefore I recommend it to " A Young 

 Beginner." 



Fourthly. It has been recommended by almost all writers on the 



