LAYERING PLANTS. 



291 



LAYERING PLANTS. 



white with daisies in the spring, may be 

 cleared entirely in the course of a season. 

 The neat appearance of the garden will 

 well repay the time and trouble spent in 

 the continual use of the daisy fork. A few 

 showers of rain and a heavy roll will soon 

 obliterate the holes that are made; and 

 fine grass will not be long in filling up .the 

 spaces hitherto occupied by daisies and 

 weeds. 



Layering Plants. 



Propagation by layers consists in taking 

 means to arrest the circulation of the sap 

 on its return from the extremities to the 

 roots. In this operation an upward slit is 

 made half across a joint ; and when the 

 part so cut is fixed in favourable soil a 

 callus or callosity (from the Latin callus, 

 hard, thick skin) is formed. This hardening 

 of the surface arrests the sap, and after a 

 brief period roots are thrown out, and the 

 branch becomes an independent plant. 

 This process is adopted with pinks, carna- 

 tions, roses, and many other plants. It is, 

 however, a very important operation in 

 gardening, and should be neatly executed. 

 For an illustration of the method of per- 

 forming it see Carnations^ but no one who 

 carefully considers the following descrip- 

 tion can fail in carrying it out in a perfectly 

 satisfactory manner. Choosing the suitable 

 branch of a carnation, for instance, which 

 is first stripped of all leaves below the 

 joint selected, and being furnished with a 

 very sharp knife, the operator begins to 

 make an incision in the under part of the 

 branch a quarter of an inch below a joint, 

 passing the blade upwards through the 

 joint in a slanting direction to a quarter of 

 an inch above, taking care that the cut 

 terminates as nearly as possible in the 

 centre of the stem : the tip of the tongue 

 thus made is cut off with a clean, sharp cut, 

 and the layers pegged down in a little fine 

 rich mould, but not more than an inch 



under the soil. In the case of carnations, 

 the plant is in a fit state for the operation 

 as soon as the flowering season is over. 

 No stem which has already produced 

 flowers should be employed for the pur- 

 pose. 



It has been said that the layers should 

 be pegged down in the mould. This has 

 the effect of opening the incision which 

 has been made in the under part of the 

 branch or "grass," as it is technically 

 called, for when pressure is brought to 

 bear on the upper part of the branch, 

 between its junction with the stem and 

 the incision that has been made in it, must 

 of necessity force the cut open and cause 

 the tongue to recede from 

 the part from which it has 

 been severed. The part 

 that is cut will form a 

 callus far more readily 

 than if the sides of the 

 incision were permitted to 

 remain in contiguity. Some 

 gardeners, indeed, in order 

 FOR PEGGING to prevent this and keep 

 POW.LAVEKS. th e cut open, insert a little 

 piece of tile, slate, or stick, &c., but this is not 

 absolutely necessary, as the pressure of the 

 peg, as it has been already said, is sufficient 

 to keep the cut open. It is said that the 

 presence of this extraneous substance acts 

 on the plant as a stimulus to the produc- 

 tion of roots, and experience has shown 

 that this is the case, though it is by no 

 means easy to assign a satisfactory reason 

 for it. Pegs for keeping down layers may 

 be cut from pea sticks or old birch brooms, 

 as shown at A in the accompanying illustra- 

 tion, or hairpins, a-, at B, may be used, 

 provided they are sufficiently stout. When 

 neither of these can be procured, some wire 

 can be cut into pieces about 4 inches long, 

 and turned so as to resemble a hairpin. 

 Care must be taken not to break the branch 

 thus layered or layed down by exerting too 



CROOK (A) 



HAIRPIN 



