202 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



means of extending our plantations. But where a variety is 

 scarce, or the purpose is to increase it rapidly, we can dig 

 out the many interlacing roots that fill the soil between the 

 hills, cut them into two-inch pieces, and each may be de- 

 veloped within a year into a good plant. Fall is the best 

 season for making root cuttings, and it can be continued as 

 late as the frost permits. My method is to store the roots 

 in a cellar, and cut them from time to time, after out-of- 

 door work is over. I have holes bored in the bottom of a 

 box to insure drainage, spread over it two inches of moist 

 (not wet) earth, then an inch layer of the root cuttings, a 

 thin layer of earth again, then cuttings until the box is full. 

 If the cellar is cool and free from frost, the cuttings may be 

 kept there until spring ; or the boxes containing them can 

 be buried so deeply on a dry knoll in a garden as to be be- 

 low frost. Leaves piled above them insure safety. Make 

 sure that the boxes are buried where no water can collect 

 either on or beneath the surface. Before new roots can be 

 made by a cutting, a whitish excrescence appears at both its 

 ends, called the callus, and from this the rootlets start out. 

 This essential process goes on throughout the winter, and 

 therefore the advantage of making cuttings in the fall. Oc- 

 casionally, in the fall, we may qbtain a variety that we are 

 anxious to increase, in which case some of the roots may be 

 taken off for cuttings before setting out the plants. 



These little root-slips may be so-v\ti, as one would sow 

 peas, early in the spring as soon as the ground is dry enough 

 to work. A plot of rich, moist land should be chosen, and 

 the soil made mellow and fine, as if for seed ; drills should 

 then be opened eighteen inches apart, two inches deep on 

 heavy land, and three inches deep on light. The cuttings 

 must now be dropped three inches from each other in the 

 little furrows, the ground levelled over them and firmed, 



