PROPAGATION. 243 



sists of taking the smallest bit of wood with the bud on it, 

 and fitting it in the stock : here it joins and grows, and is 

 as firm and effective as ordinary budding. Another way of 

 budding has been practised successfully, but we cannot see 

 the object, except to show the ingenuity of it. It consists 

 in cutting through the bark all round a branch just under 

 a bud, and making a second cut all round just above it, then, 

 opjDosite the bud make a perpendicular slit, so that the ring 

 of bark is detached from the plant with the bud and leaf 

 on it, a similar cut is made on the stock, and the bark is 

 removed. The bark with the bud is then placed in the space 

 made for it, and tied carefully in its place : the join has to 

 be made very neat at the top and bottom, but whether the 

 stock is larger, and there is a gap at the upright join, or 

 smaller, and a piece has to be cut out, is perfectly immaterial. 

 We, however, always recommend the plainest and simplest 

 method, and in all cases it will not only be found the easiest 

 but the best. In all newly budded trees the new shoot must 

 be steadied by some kind of support, for the wind wiU very 

 easily blow the bud out of its place if the shoot is long 

 enough to give it a purchase, and nothing can be more vexing 

 than to see our labours, which result in a fine growth that we 

 have been watching for months, destroyed in a single day. 



Cuttings. — There is nothing more difficult in the whole art 

 of gardening than propagation by cuttings ; yet, to a certain 

 extent, a young beginner will succeed ; and there is hardly 

 a cottager who grows a few window-plants, who is not quite 

 au fait at raising plants from slips. The fact is, that some 

 plants are so readily struck, that we are apt to fancy every- 

 thing is to be equally obedient to our wishes ; and yet a man 

 may expend half his life in learning this branch of propaga- 

 tion. Many plants will shoot out branches from the hard 

 wood, and old-fashioned amateur cultivators of a few green- 

 house plants actually wait for such shoots, and consider them 

 lucky opportunities of obtaining new plants : their custom is, 

 when their favourite slip, as they call it, is large enough, to 

 tear it down by the heel, and, without any kind of prepara- 

 tion, to put it in the centre of a small pot, and treat it forth- 

 with as a young plant — and many things require no more 

 persuasion to root, but immediately supply themselves with 

 fibres, and constitute themselves plants. This is no isolated 

 race of amateur gardeners, but iucludes nine of every ten whc 



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