198 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



generally the practice to make cuttings from the grape two or 

 three feet long; but I prefer to make them of only two or three 

 eyes, the cuttings being from four to six inches long. Another 

 method of making cuttings is to cut away a portion of the old 

 wood, making a hip or mallet shoot; and many cuttings so made 

 will grow, which would not grow if cut in the other way. There 

 are some varieties of evergreens, as the arbor vitte, the box, and 

 the ycAV, which we can grow in the open air from cuttings, plant- 

 ing them in a half-shady situation and a sandy soil. But the bet- 

 ter way is to plant such cuttings under glass, in a cold frame, in 

 a soil nearly all sand. The leaves of the evergreen are covered 

 with a fine hard coat, or epidermis, which imbibes very little 

 moisture and perspires very little. They will, therefore, remain 

 green for months where deciduous plants would perish. The 

 surest way to propagate them is to make small cuttings from the 

 green wood in the summer, when the tree is growing most rapidly, 

 and plant them in a hot-bed ; but this method requires more care 

 and skill. I prefer to make all my cuttings so short that they 

 can be planted perpendicular. If the cutting is delayed until so 

 late in the winter that the sap begins to rise, they may be placed 

 in the ground in a reversed position, so that the butt end of the 

 cutting shall be near the surface; and then the rising of the sap 

 will make the callous excrescence from which the roots are to 

 spring. The cuttings may afterwards be taken up and placed in 

 their proper position. 



A layer is a cutting, only it is propagated in another form. 

 The branch is cut partly off, forming a tongue upon which there 

 should always be a bud. The object is to check the flow of the 

 sap, and to produce roots there, so that the branch may be sepa- 

 rated from its parent plant and become self-supporting. The fall 

 is generally the best time for layering deciduous trees ; but there 

 is no general rule. Some varieties, such as the soft-wooded 

 plants, do better in the spring. It is easier to make layers near 

 the surface of the ground, but it is not necessary, for you may 

 put a box of earth up into the tree, and keep it there until the 

 roots have been formed in it. You can bend over your tree and 

 layer from the whole top of it, if you desire many plants; but in 

 that way you will destroy the parent tree. The best time to 

 layer the grape is in the spring, after the buds have started. The 

 roots that grow from a layer are not as sound, or as firm, or as 

 active as those growing from a cutting; because the layer 



