ON PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 265 



buds or joints is, that a plant is produced from every bud or joint ; whereas, 

 in propagating by cuttings, at least two buds, and commonly several, are 

 required. The plants raised by buds, on the other hand, are commonly 

 weaker than those raised by cuttings, from having a smaller supply of nutri- 

 tive matter for their support during their infancy. 



605. A nodule, as we have seen (115), is a concretion of embryo buds, 

 such as may be frequently seen in the matter extra vasated from the joints 

 of pelargoniums and the stumps of old elms and poplars, olives and mul- 

 berries, occasioned by the returning sap not flowing freely to the root. 

 These nodules are seldom used for the purpose of propagation, except in the 

 case of the olive ; but there can be no doubt that they might be employed 

 for this purpose, and would answer, were it not that the plants which pro- 

 duce them are in general very readily propagated by cuttings. The only 

 remarkable instance of propagation by this mode that is on record is prac- 

 tised in Italy with the olive. The old trees are commonly found to con- 

 tain swellings or nodules in the trunk, called uovole, and these being sepa- 

 rated, are planted in the soil in the manner of bulbs, and produce plants. 

 The operation of separating is performed with a sharp pen-knife, and the 

 mother plant does not seem to suffer the slightest injury by the operation. 

 (Gard. Mag. vol. vii. p. 663.) This no doubt might be practised with the 

 nodules of all plants, and we believe it has occasionally been done with those 

 of the white poplar, the mulberry, and the pelargonium. 



606. In propagating by joints of the vine it is reasonable to suppose that 

 the larger the portion of wood attached to the joint the stronger will be the 

 plants produced. Mr. Knight found that the buds of the vine, wholly 

 detached from the alburnum, were incapable of retaining life ; but that a 

 very few grains of alburnum were sufficient to enable a bud to form minute 

 leaves and roots, such as would have been produced by plants raised from 

 seeds. By increasing the quantity of alburnum, the shoots produced from 

 the buds increased in the same proportion ; and when the bud had a piece 

 of two years' old wood, a foot long, attached to it, the growth was nearly as 

 strong as it would have been if the bud had remained on the parent tree. 

 Joints of the vine are preferred to cuttings for propagation, because they 

 form plants more easily managed in pots than are larger cuttings or layers ; 

 and they are preferred to layers also, because they are always furnished with 

 roots in due proportion to their shoots, whereas plants raised from layers 

 have frequently, from not being separated from the parent plant at the 

 proper time, very strong shoots and very few ill-ripened roots. In pre- 

 paring joints of the vine, about half an inch of the wood is left above and 



below the bud, as in fig. 176 ; but this and all other 

 plants that are so propagated are found to root better 

 when the shoot is cut through, so as to separate 

 about one- third part of the pith, as shown in fig. 177. 

 By this latter mode of treatment plants have been 



Fig. 176. A joint of a vine j d fw)mbuds and half . 

 prepared in the common 

 manner, and planted. joints of Camellia, pOHlSettm, 



euphorbia, brugmansia, and 

 other species. Mr. Murray observes of the lych- 

 nis coronaria, the flower-stem of which has opposite 

 leaves, that not only will individual joints strikeout 



if each joint be Split into tWO Vertically, two distinct and pith are removed previous 



plants may be obtained. (Gard. Chron. for 1841, to planting. 



