The Garden. 85 



The first step is, where scions are to be employed, either as 

 grafts or cuttings, to secure the desired varieties without delay. 

 They should be separated from the parent stock before the bud 

 begins to swell. They may be transported to any reasonable 

 distance, and kept till wanted for use in a cellar, or with their 

 butt-ends well plunged in earth. The larger fruits maybe prop- 

 agated by grafting or layering; the grape, currant, quince and 

 gooseberry by cuttings. As you have already treated on these 

 processes in your Magazine, I will quote from Professor Rennie, 

 to explain more fully the scientific principles upon which they 

 depend for success. 



" Scientific Principles for Transplanting. 



" The removing of growing plants from one part of the garden 

 to another is done for various reasons, and the science of trans- 

 planting will consequently depend on the intention of the garden- 

 er in the operation. The principal facts to be recollected are, 

 that every plant takes its food by the tips of the root fibres, and 

 that the sap thence carried up into the leaves has much of its 

 water and oxygen carried oiF by exposure to light, particularly to 

 sunshine. It follows, that if part or all of the tips of the root 

 fibres be broken off or bruised, the plant will be kept hungry or 

 starved, just as an animal would be, with its mouth much injured 

 or blocked up; while if a plant in such a state is placed in the 

 sunshine, the water and oxygen carried off thereby will very 

 soon cause it to flag, wither and die. 



" Transporting. — If the gardener's object then be simply to 

 move plants from one place to another, without affecting their 

 growth in any way, it will be important to preserve every root 

 fibre entire; and even, when this can be done, to take it up with 

 part of the soil in which it has been growing, or with a large ball 

 of earth, as it is termed. When this cannot be done, the root 

 fibres ought to be placed in their new station, as nearly as possi- 

 ble in the manner they were at first; and hence dibbing, where 

 the soil is at all stiff", will be a bad practice, from its being cer- 

 tain to confine and crush the root fibres within the walls of the 

 dibbed hole. 



"If it be found impossible to preserve these root fibres from 

 injury, or to replant them exactly as they were, then, in order to 

 diminish the loss of water and oxygen, the plants ought to be 

 shaded from the light, or, if that cannot be done, they ought to 

 have a suitable proportion of their leaves or branches cut off". 

 De Candolle says, this practice was wont to be so universal upon 

 the continent, that the gardener's maxim was, ' If you plant your 

 own father, you must cut off" his head.' Sir Henry Stewart has 

 proved the bad science of such universal barbarity. 



" It is important not to plant the roots too deep, so as to be 



