128 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



no matter how small the roots may be ; half an inch is 

 a much better length for them to be when potted than 

 two inches, and the operation is much quicker performed 

 when the roots are short, than when long. But the main 

 evils of delaying the potting off of cuttings are, that when 

 left too long, the cuttings grow up weak and spindling, 

 the roots become hard, and do not take as quickly 

 to the pot. Nearly the same care is required in shading 

 and watering the cuttings after potting, as when they are 

 in the cutting bench ; for no matter how carefully taken 

 up, in the operation of potting, the delicate roots get 

 more or less injured, and until the cuttings begin to emit 

 new roots, they are nearly as liable to wilt as the unrooted 

 cuttings. 



Cuttings should always be placed in small pots, the best 

 size being from two to two and a half inches wide and 

 deep ; if placed in larger pots, the soil dries out too slowly 

 and the tender root, imbedded too long in a mass of wet 

 soil, rots, and the plant dies. Though we generally pre- 

 fer soil to be unsifted in potting large plants, yet for 

 newly-potted cuttings it is better to be sifted fine, not 

 only because it is more congenial thus to the young roots, 

 but also that the operation of potting is quicker done with 

 finely-sifted than with coarse soil. 



After potting, the cuttings are placed on benches cov- 

 ered witli an inch or so of sand, watered freely with a 

 fine rose watering pot, and shaded for four or five days 

 by that time they will have begun to root, when no fur- 

 ther shading is necessary. 



