AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



slides off the cut into a position almost perpendicular. (See 

 Fig. 83 c.) If the sprout to be layered prove stubborn, a slight 

 cut on the upper side, near the butt and toward the parent tree, 

 will weaken its resistance, and enable you to bend and pin it to 

 its proper place, and will also probably promote the rooting of 

 the layer, unless it be made more than half through the sprout, 

 which should be avoided. (See Fig. 83 d.) 



All tongued layers require much care in removing them from 

 the parent plant, to avoid splitting them up from the tongue. 

 Generally, all the roots will be found to have grown from the 

 tongue-bud, and a little rashness may leave you a rootless 

 plant. (See Fig. 88, p. 203.) 



Besides tongueing, other modes of attaining the same end 

 are sometimes used, as notching the sprout about half through 

 immediately below a bud. Sometimes tongueing is combined 

 with this, and in ^inexperienced hands the notching will render 

 it easier to form the tongue properly. Banding tightly with 

 wire, piercing with an awl or knife, girdling a narrow space, or 

 merely twisting the shoot just beyond the bud from which the 

 roots are expected to push, are all resorted to, while some 

 plants, as the grape-vine, root freely if the branches are simply 

 fastened down and covered lightly with earth. 



HILL LAYERING. 



Fig> 84. This is a process often re- 



sorted to for propagating free- 

 rooting woody plants, as the 

 quince, certain varieties of 

 the apple, and some forest 

 trees. The young shoots arc 

 prepared by trimming, as di- 

 rected above for common lay- 

 ering, but may be tongued or not, according to the character of 

 the tree, a flattened or dished hill of earth, six or eight inches 

 high, being made about them, as shown in the figure. All lay- 

 ers are benefited by being mulched, but hill layers especially 

 should be thus protected and regularly watered, dressing them 

 occasionally with weak liquid manure. 



