14 THE OECHABD AKD FBUIT GAEDEIf. 



cherry, set with pollen from the white-heart, produced 

 the Elton cherry. Varieties thus crossed are sometimes 

 more productive than either parent, and their produce 

 is susceptible of improvement by careful culture. 



Growing from eyes is a simple mode of propagation, 

 now much used for making vines, and for some other 

 purposes. A single eye, a leaf bud, is extracted from a 

 plant, and planted with due allowance of heat and 

 moisture, and in time it too becomes a plant. 



Striking cuttings is an easy method of propagation in 

 the case of all plants which strike easily. Some hardy 

 fruit trees will throw out roots tolerably readily. The 

 cuttings must each possess several leaf buds, and be 

 planted with one or two below the ground, the others 

 above it. The lowest bud will soon throw out root, and 

 imbibe nourishment from the earth, while those above 

 ground, developing their leaves, will draw up nourish- 

 ment, until in time the cutting becomes a plant or tree. 

 The end of October is the time for taking cuttings, if 

 the tree have lost its leaves by then, but any time from 

 the fall of the leaf to the first swelling of the buds in 

 spring will do ; for callus, the matter exuding from the 

 edges of a wound in a plant during the process of 

 healing, through which in cuttings the roots and per- 

 pendicular vessels connected with them proceed, forms 

 at the lower end even during winter. The situation in 

 which the cuttings are planted should be neither sunny 

 and dry, nor too shady, as that would make them run 

 up weak. The north side of a wall, not less than four 

 feet from it, is a good position : here they will be in 

 shade during the spring, while they are rooting, and by 

 about midsummer, when all that take will be well 

 established, they will thrive in the sunshine which they 

 will then get. Plant the cuttings rather firm at their 

 lower ends, and if very dry weather occur in March, 

 April, or May, give them a sprinkling of water now 

 and then. 



A way of planting cuttings of fruit trees was 

 described in the Cottage Gardener a few years back, by 

 means of which I have seen kinds of fruit trees saved 



