8o 



Commercial Gardening 



cuttings being inserted in a hotbed of moderate temperature. Some plants 

 like Horse-radish and Sea-kale are easily and generally raised in this way; 

 while such weeds as the Bearbind, Dock, Thistle, Dandelion are also in- 

 creased quite as readily by chopping up the roots. Other plants that may 

 be raised by means of root cuttings are Anemone japonica, Acanthus 

 mollis, Boeconia, Dictamnus Fraxinella, the Sea Hollies (Eryngium), the 

 Globe Thistle (Echinops), the Oriental Poppy (Papaver orientale), Statice 

 latifolia, &c. Many kinds of trees and shrubs like Hawthorns, Plums, 

 Apples, Pears, Quinces, Roses, Poplar, Mulberries, False Acacias (Robinia), 

 Sumach (Rhus), Paulownia, Sophora, &c., may be propagated from root 

 cuttings. 



Layering 1 . This method of propagation consists in making an incision 

 in a branch or shoot, and then bending it down and covering with soil. 



Border Carnations are usually 

 propagated by layering. In the 

 open air the work is done about 

 the end of July and during 

 August. Non-flowering shoots 

 are slit upwards with a sharp 

 knife in a fairly well -ripened 

 portion, thus forming a "tongue". 

 The layered shoots are pegged 

 into the soil with hairpins or 



pieces of bent wire, and are 

 covered with a nice gritty soil, 

 and given a good watering. At 

 the end of three or four weeks 

 a mass of fibrous roots are 



emitted from the callused surface of the tongue. Each rooted layer may 

 then be severed from the parent plant which has been feeding it, and 

 may be planted out at once, or potted up to be kept in cold frames during 

 the winter. 



In the case of American or Perpetual-flowering Carnations the shoots 

 may be layered whenever they are sufficiently ripe; but it is found more 

 convenient, as a rule, to raise them by cuttings, or by " ringing ". 



Many trees and shrubs are propagated by layers when they cannot 

 be raised in any other way, or when they are raised most quickly by 

 that method. The young shoots near the ground are bent down and 

 covered with soil, being kept in position by means of bent wires or 

 wooden crooks. Some plants root readily from the joints without any 

 incisions being made, but others are slit in the same way as Carnations, 

 care being taken to keep the tongue open or away from the shoot. In 

 fig. 70 a shoot a is shown pegged down at 6, while a stake c is placed 

 to the aerial portion to keep it erect. In fig. 71 the tongue of the 

 shoot is shown at 6, while another method is shown on the right at /, 

 where a ring of bark is taken off the wood. It will be noticed that all 



Fig. 70. Layering a Woody Shoot 



