MONTHLY CALENDAR. 613 



§ 2.— Shrubbery and Flower-Garden. 



1924. The great business of propagating for next year should now be con- 

 summated. Nevertheless, such things as verbenas, calceolarias, &c. kc, 

 maj' still be put in with the certainty of success. Sometimes these plants 

 flower so freely that it is almost impossible to get suitable wood for cuttings 

 until the end of September or beginning of this month. It is almost useless 

 to try to strike pieces of the hard tiowering-wood, — the small young shoots, 

 heeled off from the flowering branches, constitute the proper cuttings. It is 

 better to wait until now for these than to attempt striking the others in August 

 or September. The cuttings cannot well be too small if they are long enough 

 to admit of one end being made firm in the soil, and a brace of leaves to 

 breathe in the air ; neither is it of the slightest importance whether the 

 leaves at the bottom of the cutting are removed or not, as far as the rooting 

 is concerned. My own opinion is, their retention favours the emission of 

 roots. However, the more leaves retained, the more carefully must damp be 

 guarded against in winter, and the greater care must be exercised to guard 

 the cutting, through the preliminary stages from cutting-wood to plant- 

 wood, from an excessive exhaustion of its juices by perspiration. The very 

 effort, however, to perspire causes a circulation of fluids ; and the stronger this 

 current, consistent with vitality, the mightier is the force with which the cut- 

 ting gravitates towards life instead of death, while its juices continue in active 

 stagnation, or semi-death prevails. When the sap moves, life begins to assert 

 its sway. The leaves are the great agents in maintaining the circulation of 

 the sap ; consequently, the more there are retained on a cutting, the more rapid 

 will be the motion of its fluids, and the sooner UfAY roots be emitted — I don't 

 say MUST. This rapid motion of the sap is in favour of life, but it may result 

 in death, illustrating the old proverb, "The more haste the less speed." 

 Eapid circulation is good, provided there is a supply to bo conveyed ; but if a 

 CLu-rent throughout a plant, or part of a plant,— that is, a cutting, is main- 

 tained, without the addition of new matter,— the period of utter exhaustion, 

 eliding in death, will be in exact ratio to the rate of speed. Hence the im- 

 portance of checking perspiration by a humid atmosphere, and maintaining a 

 proper balance between the supply and expenditure of the organizable or life- 

 extending, organ-forming matter of the cutthig. Free perspiration from 

 geranium-cuttings is useful, because they contain more fluid than is neces- 

 sary to sustain their life until new matter is formed; and the motion of 

 the fluids it induces helps to form such new matter. The same, or half the 

 amount of perspiration, would wither up and destroy verbena or calceolaria 

 cuttings, because they contain less fluid, and are more delicate and fragile in 

 their texture. The juice of the former may, therefore, be freely and liberally 

 expended ; the juice of the latter must be carefully husbanded, to guard 

 against death from exhaustion. The whole theory and practice of propaga- 



