that ivy berries are quite ripe, the spring will be sufficiently advanced to allow 

 of the seeds being sown without any need of storing them previously. There is 

 no occasion to rot or bruise the berries : they may be sown thickly in beds of 

 sandy loam. Keep the ground clear of weeds, and as soon as the seedlings show 

 their characters remove any of distinct habit, and either plant them out where they 

 will have attention, or pot them. Those that remain will require to be planted 

 out in nursery rows after they have made one year's growth in the seed-bed. 

 Among the plants selected for special attention, some will prove to be distinct 

 varieties, the true characters of which will not be fully determinable till they are 

 quite three years old. Variegated ivies are seldom obtained from the seed-bed ; 

 they are usually sports produced on old specimens of wall ivies. Chalk and lime 

 are favourable to the production of variegated sports. 



We may often see on ruins and old bridges broad sheets of variegated ivy> 

 the result of a sportive growth become permanent. These may always be propa- 

 gated by removing some of the young growth in May or June, selecting those 

 which, have some proportion of green in the leaves, and placing the cuttings 

 under bell-glasses in any sandy or peaty soil. Many beautiful varieties might be 

 added to our collections, if local sports were secured and distributed, which now 

 exist only in single specimens, and many of those we possess might be improved 

 by watching for peculiar growths, and rendering these permanent by propagation. 



There is another method of causing cuttings of ivy to root quickly ; it is 

 founded upon the peculiar habit of the plant in attaching itself to rough surfaces, 

 such as walls, the bark of trees, &c. If the growth of a new shoot be observed in 

 spring, it will be seen that on the side next the wall it throws out a number of 

 small, fleshy, tender claws. These are in every respect identical with roots, and 

 only fail to become roots through lack of moisture in the substance to which they 

 are first applied. Take off a young shoot when about four inches long, remove 

 one or two of the lowest leaves, and plant it so that the delicate white rootlets at 

 the base are uninjured, and it will scarcely receive a check, for those rootlets will 

 push into the soil and form a plant at once without the otherwise needful prelimi- 

 nary of forming a callus. This is a quick method of propagating ivy, but it must 

 be done in May and June, and the shoots must be taken from a wall or other place 

 to which the plant is attached. 



Another simple and expeditious method consists in making layers. To accom- 

 plish this with extra speed, peg out the shoots on a bed of cocoa-nut fibre refuse. 

 The free-growing kinds will throw out roots abundantly wherever they touch a 

 damp surface ; so there is really no limit to the possibilities of increase by this 



