THE PARLOR GARDENER 67 



portable greenhouse will possess for propagating 

 every kind of plant by slips. "We may begin 

 by your pretty dwarf succulent plants, detached 

 fragments of which will, under the shelter which 

 it affords, take root with marvellous docility. 

 Take, for example, a charming opuntia, and sep- 

 arate one of its little shoots, by cutting it at the 

 base with a very sharp penknife. If you put this 

 shoot in the earth as a slip at the moment that 

 you cut it, the surface of the wound in contact 

 with the earth will rot, and not a root will come 

 forth. To be successful, you must lay the slip 

 on one of the shelves of your itag^re^ and leave 

 it for two or three days, that the wound may 

 begin to scar over before it is planted ; when 

 this takes place, plant it as if it had roots and 

 indeed it will not be long before it has them. 

 To assure yourself of this, you need not pull it 

 up, as children do, who, when they have put a 

 bean in the earth, take it up once or twice a day 

 to see if it is going to sprout so that it never 

 comes up. So soon as your slip has taken pos- 

 session of the earth with its young roots, it will 

 not fail to advise you of it by giving birth to 



