64 GARDEXIXG FOR PLEASURE. 



CHAPTER XII. 



PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY CUTTINGS. 



There is no more interesting operation to the amateur 

 gardener than that of increasing his stock of plants by 

 cuttings or slips. Heretofore it was accounted a great 

 mystery, and unless with some of the commonest kinds 

 of Geraniums, few amateurs ever presumed to invade the 

 territory of the professional gardener. Nearly all writers 

 on the subject had so befogged this simple matter with 

 technical nonsense, that few, not regularly brought up to 

 the business, presumed to attempt it. We now consider 

 it one of our simplest operations; far simpler than raising 

 many kinds of plants from seed. Though we raise over 

 two millions of plants annually, and kee^) a professional 

 propagator with three assistants doing nothing else the en- 

 tire year but propagating plants from slips, yet we could 

 take any careful, intelligent man from iimong our garden 

 laborers, and install him as a competent propagator in a 

 year, and for many of the commoner things in half that 

 time. Where plants are propagated from cuttings in 

 large numbers, we elevate a bench, usually four feet wide, 

 above the flue or hot- water or steam pipes, to within a foot 

 or so of the glass at the front, and on this table or bench 

 we place three or four inches of sand, of any color or tex- 

 ture, provided it is not from the sea-shore (which contains 

 salt). This bench is boarded down in front, so as to con- 

 fine the heat from the flue or pipes under it, and give 

 what is called ''bottom heat." The sand on a bench so 

 formed will indicate a temperature of perhaps seventy 

 degrees, while the atmosphere of the greenhouse, partic- 

 ularly during the night, will be ten degrees less. ]N"ow, 

 if the cuttings are in the right condition, and are inserted 

 an inch or so in the sand, freely watered, and shaded 



