AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 199 



Layers are properly branch cuttings, planted without being 

 entirely severed from the parent plant, and, like ordinary branch 

 cuttings, they are usually made from sprouts of last year's 

 growth. To prepare a woody bush or plant for layering, let all 

 very weak, or forked, and also overgrown sprouts be cut away, 

 leaving only such as have pretty fully developed buds down to 

 within six or eight inches of the ground. If the growth has 

 been so strong that the buds upon a foot or more of the lower 

 end of the sprout are small and obscure, it is seldom worth 

 while to layer it, unless it be toward the middle or the upper 

 extremity. (See Fig. 83 a.) The sprouts you propose to layer 

 must then be trimmed clear of all side shoots and leaves as far 

 up as it will be requisite to bury them. Having the bush or 

 plant thus trimmed, dig the earth carefully around it, breaking 

 it fine, and mixing rich mould with it, and sand if the soil be 

 heavy, leaving the whole, when finished, very slightly raised 

 above the natural level. Next, with a shingle five or six 

 inches long, or with the spade, make an open slit in the earth 

 to receive the layer. At such distance from the butt of the 

 sprout as will permit of its being bent down into the ground, 

 which is generally eight or ten inches, a cut is made about 

 half through the branch, immediately below and close to a bud, 

 and the knife being then carefully turned upward, a slit is 

 made of about an inch in length, which is termed tongueing it, 

 and the tongue, when cut, should have its end not thin and 

 sloping in, as shown in Fig. 83 Z>, but rather square or clubbed, 

 as Fig. 83 c, for which purpose, if needful, it must be nibbed. 



It is then carefully bent down, with a slightly twisting mo- 

 tion in the process, to prevent snapping it off and to open it, 

 and being firmly pinned down with a hooked stick, Fig. 83 &, d, 

 it may be covered with from two to four inches of earth, cau- 

 tiously pressing it downward and around the layer, which 

 should then, like ordinary branch cuttings, be shortened to one 

 or two buds above the surface. It will be found in practice 

 that there is much less danger of layers snapping off when the 

 tongue is cut nearly upon the upper or inner side of the sprout, 

 in which case, by slightly twisting it, the bark side of the 

 sprout is brought underneath, while the lower end of the tongue 



