248 PKACTICAL GARDENING. 



or hard- wooded kinds will generally strike very freely with 

 one joint under ground and one ahove; vines especially strike 

 so easily without any other management than merely cutting 

 them at a joint, that on one occasion we remember to have 

 used the cuttings of a vine to mark the spots where we had 

 sown annuals, and at the growing time found ourselves 

 possessed of an immense quantity of healthy plants, which 

 had we cared for them would have been of consequence, from 

 their great number. The willow is just as free, for it was 

 once a common practice in country cottage gardens, to get 

 willow stakes, and bend them by sticking both ends into 

 the ground, and although there was no pains even taken iu 

 cutting them at joints, both ends would root, and the growth 

 at every joint formed a complete willow hedge ; this was a 

 very usual fence between two gardens. Currant and gooseberry 

 bushes "will strike by merely cutting the bottom up to the 

 joint, and with six or eight-inch lengths, half being inserted 

 in the ground, and half exposed, scarcely one in fifty would 

 miss if the ground were kept moist. Eoses of the smooth- 

 barked kinds strike very freely ; but in all these apparently 

 simple processes there is some care required in the preparation 

 of the cuttings. For instance, we must cut close up to the 

 joint, so as just to reach the sohd part, if it be anything with 

 pith in the centre, but we must not go beyond it. If there 

 be any of the hollow or spongy wood left on, or the joint itself 

 is cut into, there is great danger of failure, for the roots ema- 

 nate from the joint, and nowhere else, and by exposing that 

 to immediate contact with the soil, and leaving no useless 

 wood below it, the process is greatly aided. As to vines, roses, 

 currants, gooseberries, camellias, geraniums, and indeed, most 

 free-growing shrubs, trees, and plants, the whole length of the 

 last year's wood may be cut into lengths, with a joint or more 

 below and one above, and will do well, and in ahnost all cases 

 the last year's shoot will strike with care, though with many 

 more difficult subjects the cutting must be taken ofi" at the 

 heel as soon as it is long enough. The common cabbage, 

 after the main head has been cut off, will send out shoots, 

 and these, if taken off and planted as soon as there is stem 

 enough to insert in the ground, and it has begun to form a 

 heel, will strike, and form as good cabbages as the parents, 

 but smaller ; these, however, woidd be required to be taken 

 off at the heel, and almost with a bit of the stump, but cer- 



