30 PROPAGATION OF THE MOUTAN PJEONY IN CHINA. 



that they frequently dried certain herbs before infusing them, and that 

 they administered some plants by fumigations, and practised the art of 

 making salves and ointments of vegetables, for which they had great 

 renown even at Rome, to which city they exported the Vervain, and it 

 was hence called Britannica. 



Although so many ages have passed away since the Druids and their 

 pretended spells have been abolished, yet Ave frequently meet with 

 lingering sparks of their imagined light among the vulgar, who upon 

 every occasion cling to superstition. 



Madame de Latour tells us that the shepherds in the northern pro- 

 vinces of France, still continue to gather the Vervain under different 

 faces of the moon, using certain mysterious ejaculations known only to 

 themselves, whilst in the act of collecting this herb, by whose assist- 

 ance they attempt to cure not only their fellow-servants, but their 

 masters also, of various complaints, and they profess to charm both 

 the flocks and the rural belles with this plant. 



The Germans to this day present a hat of Vervain to the new- 

 married bride, as if to put her under the protection of Venus victorious, 

 which is evidently the remains of ancient customs. 



Vervain is now very properly made the emblem of superstition. 



PROPAGATION OF THE MOUTAN PiEONY IN CHINA. 



" In the beginning of October, large quantities of the roots of an 

 herbaceous Pseony (a variety with small single flowers) are seen heaped 

 up in sheds and other outhouses, and intended to be used as stocks for 

 the Moutan. The bundle of tubers which forms the root of an herba- 

 ceous Pffiony is pulled to pieces, and each of the finger-like-rootlets 

 form a stock upon which the Moutan is destined to be be grafted. 

 Havino- thrown a large number of these rootlets upon the potting- 

 bench, the scions are to be brought from the plants which it is desirous 

 to increase. Each scion used is not more than an inch and a-half or 

 two inches in length, and is the point of a shoot formed during the 

 bygone summer. Its base is cut in the form of a wedge, and inserted 

 in the crown of the finger-like tuber just noticed ; this is tied up or 

 clayed round in the usual way, and the operation is completed. When 

 a large number of plants has been prepared in this manner they are 

 taken to the nursery, where they are planted in rows about a foot and 

 a half apart, and the same distance between the rows. In planting, 

 the bud or point of the scion is the only part which is left above the 

 "•round ; the point between the stock and the scion, where the union 

 is destined to take place, is always buried beneath the surface. Kempfer 

 states that the Chinese propagate the Moutan by budding ; but this 

 must have been a mistake, as budding is never practised in the country, 

 and is not understood. He was probably deceived by the small portion 

 of scion which is employed, and which generally has only a single bud 



at the apex. 



" Many thousands of plants are grafted in this manner every 

 Autumn, and the few vacant spaces which one sees in the rows, attest 



