80 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



in pots, but never a plant on its natural roots. If one asks any 

 question as to the diseases of the plants, only guesses are given. The 

 loss to the trade is great. To suppose that clever propagators could 

 not increase these hardy climbers in the natural way is absurd. The 

 final test of the practice is not in the nursery, but in the grounds of 

 the buyers of the plants. Any practice of increase which drives plants 

 out of general cultivation is a loss to the trade as well as to the 

 planter. From experiments carried on for many years here I have 

 proved that the cause of the loss is the unnatural practice of grafting 

 these plants. 



After the grafting, a mistake is made in setting the plants out 



fully exposed to the sun. The nature of the Clematis in the wild 



state is to run over bushes and copses, as one may 



Grafting not the see on the shores of Northern Africa. So if we 



only cause. plant beneath a bush a little shade is afforded, and 



though the growth is not so free as when the plants 



are set apart, the life of the plant is longer and the effect is more 



beautiful. Lastly, more dangerous than eelworms and fungi are slugs, 



which bark the fragile stems as far up as they can get, and that means 



the death of the shoot in summer, but not the death of the plant if on 



its own roots. Lawn-mower, hoe, or rake may smash the delicate 



stems if the plants are set out singly, especially if grafted, as the 



union of the choice variety and the wild stock used is often fragile, 



whereas the plant on its natural roots never is. On hot, sunny days 



partial loss occurs by shoots dying off, but when on its own roots we 



do not lose the plant. 



The rest is the story of my planting and success here by following 

 a completely different way from the common one. It at first struck 

 me that the grafting of plants of different species 

 The test. was not always justified in results. In the nursery 

 practice the rule is to work the Clematis of Japan 

 on the toughest and most vigorous climber of our chalk hills a 

 wholly different plant and from a different country and, therefore, 

 there might be a cause of death through the sap arising at different 

 times in the two plants in the spring of the year. The next thing was 

 to test the matter by planting not an easy matter, as in every 

 nursery there were only the grafted plants, and, like so many others, 

 I lost many. At the same time, there was evidence in many places 

 that the Indian Mountain Clematis and other wild kinds, which are 

 grown on their natural roots, are vigorous climbers. The stool ground 

 in which the old nurserymen layered their plants was done away with 

 in favour of the new way of buying stocks by the thousand with no 

 thought as to the result to the planter. 



In only one nursery in France that of the late Ferdinand Jamin, 



