5 



THE NURSERY-BOOK. 



to the fact that considerable time is required for the formation of 

 the adventitious buds which give rise to the roots as from any con- 

 nection between the callusing and rooting pro- 

 cesses themselves. Hard-wood cuttings give bet- 

 ter results when kept dormant for some time after 

 they are cut. They are usually made in the fall, 

 and stored during the winter in sand, sawdust or 

 moss in a cool cellar, or buried in a sandy and well- 

 drained place. This, at least, is the practice with 

 hard-wood cuttings of deciduous plants. Hard- 

 wood evergreen cuttings, when taken in the fall, 

 are usually set at once, as their foliage will not al- 

 low them to be buried with safety ; but in this 

 case, the cuttings are kept "quiet " or dormant for 

 a time,, to allow callusing to progress. If cuttings 

 are buried so deep that they cannot sprout, callus- 

 ing may be hastened by placing them in a mild 

 temperature. Single-eye grape cuttings are some- 

 times packed between layers of sand in a barrel 

 and the barrel is set under a forcing-house bench 

 where the temperature is about 50. Eight or ten 

 inches of sand is usually placed over the top 

 layer. In this manner, cuttings which have been 

 obtained in winter or spring can be callused before 

 planting time. 



It is a singular fact that the lower end of the 

 cutting, as it stood upon the parent plant, pro- 

 duces roots and the upper end produces leaves and 

 shoots, even if the cutting is inverted. And if the 

 cutting is divided into several parts, each part will 

 still exhibit this same differentiation of function. This is true 

 even of root cuttings, and of other cuttings which possess no 

 buds. The reasons for this localization of function are not yet 

 clearly understood, although the phenomenon..has lately been 

 the subject of study. Upon this fact depends the hastening of 

 the rooting process in inverted cuttings by the direct applica- 

 tion of heat to the bottoms, and it likewise indicates that care 



Fig. 45. Mal- 

 let cutting of 

 grape. 



I 



