SETTING STICK. SETTING THE CUTTINGS. 19 



summer, or the year round, until the following spring. 

 I have known them to be kept from one season to another 

 in a cellar, and when planted the bulk of them lived. 



THE SETTING STICK. 



Planting is done with the aid of an implement called 

 the "setting stick." This is made of white oak, about 

 eight inches long, with a rounded and bulbous-shaped 

 handle, and a blade about a fourth of an inch thick, as 



Fig. 6. SETTING STICK. 



shown in fig. 6. If it were made of softer wood, two 

 hours work would blunt the edge and make it compara- 

 tively useless. 



SETTING THE CUTTINGS. 



The little bunch of cuttings, or "uprights," is placed 

 upon the sand, the blade of the " setting stick " pressed 

 upon them, and with a single thrust of the hand the hole 

 is made, and the "uprights" set or planted at a suitable 

 depth and in proper position ; that is, through the cover- 

 ing of sand, and in contact with the muck beneath. In 

 this case, the vines being alive when planted, not one in 

 five hundred will be lost. The cuttings, when set, should 

 not project above the surface more than from one to two 

 inches. When the long runner, doubled, is used instead 

 of the little bunch of vines, if two feet long the runner is 

 doubled twice, and then is planted with the setting stick 

 precisely as uprights, in the manner already described. 

 The diagram (fig. ?) of a portion of a bog illustrates the 



