SECT. V. SLIPS. 417 



SECTION V. 

 Slips, 



As the process of raising perennials from seed is 

 very slow, gardeners have discovered or invented 

 several ways of expediting the propagation of the 

 species by means of artificial aid. For it has been 

 found that if a young shoot or branch is cut off 

 with the knife, and then planted in the soil, it will 

 in many cases still continue to vegetate, sending out 

 roots below and branches above, and forming a new 

 individual. But this mode of propagation should An exten- 

 perhaps be regarded after all as an extension of the l 



old plant, rather than as the generation of a new P Iant ' 

 one ; though it serves the purpose of the cultivator 

 equally well as a plant raised from seed, with the 

 additional advantage of bearing fruit much sooner. 

 It will not succeed, however, in all plants indiscri- 

 minately ; but it succeeds extremely well in the 

 case of Currants, Gooseberries, and Vines ; as also 

 in that of the Willow and Poplar, of which you 

 can scarcely knock a stake into the ground that 

 will not strike root. The shoot thus detached from 

 the plant, and placed in the soil is denominated a 

 slip. 



But how is the root generated which the slip The root 

 thus produces ? If the trunk of a tree is lopped, sei 

 and all its existing buds destroyed, then there will 



VOL. ii. 1 E 



