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tion of fruit. It will be well to remove most of the leaves when 

 transplanting green suckers, and filling the holes with water 

 when setting will prevent excessive wilting. 



It is a good practice to trim the plants as fast as they are 

 dug, and immerse the roots at once in thick, muddy water. 

 They may be taken to the field in a bucket, and dropped out no 

 faster than they can be set in a freshly opened furrow. Such 

 plants will be found better furnished with fibrous roots than 

 when they have become older. 



ROOT CUTTINGS. 



Plant dealers increase their stock of new and desirable varie- 

 ties with great rapidity by digging up the roots in autumn, cut- 

 ting them into two or three inch lengths, and packing them in 

 boxes mixed with damp sand or soil. They may be kept in a 

 frost-proof cellar, or buried in a locality where neither frost nor 

 water will reach them. Select a dry place, having a porous 

 sub-soil, and cover the surface of the ground over the cuttings 

 with a thick mulch of leaves or straw before freezing weather 

 sets in. If frost and an excess of moisture are excluded, these 

 root-cuttings will callous during winter, and emit rootlets early 

 in spring. Before this occurs, however, the cuttings should be 

 planted three inches apart in drills, opened in a rich, sandy 

 loam, and covered two inches deep, making the soil firm with 

 the back of the spade or by pressure with the foot. On no ac- 

 count let the soil over them become dry ; neither should stand- 

 ing water be tolerated on the bed for an hour. A very light 

 mulch of straw, just enough to shade the surface, but not 

 so much as to exclude the sun's heat, will check evaporation, 

 and prevent drying. 



Let the cuttings when dropped in the trenches be immediately 

 covered with fresh soil, as exposure to sun or wind, or placing 

 them in contact with dry dirt, greatly endangers the experiment. 

 They will soon send up shoots, which, with clean and careful 

 cultivation, will attain a size suitable for transplanting in the 

 fall or following spring. 



It should be borne in mind that the Black-Caps never sucker, 

 and it would be useless to attempt the growing of plants from 

 their roots. They form " tip" plants, and these, if not planted 



