274 GARDENING. 



1. Of Layers. To obtain these, erect a scaffold 

 under any fruit-bearing tree, and on this place pots 

 or boxes filled with earth, to receive the branches.* 

 These will root sufficiently the first summer ; after 

 which, they may be transplanted to the nursery, and 

 trained to a single stem. When four years old, take 

 them up and place them where they are permanent- 

 ly to stand. Plants thus managed will give fruit the 

 second or third year after the last planting.! 



2. By Cuttings. These may be eight or ten inches 

 long, with a small portion of the preceding year's 

 wood attached. Plant them in any mild weather 

 of the spring or autumn, in rows nine inches apart, 

 leaving only one or two buds above the ground ; 

 cover the bed with half rotten leaves ; give it a lit- 

 tle water if the weather be dry, and transplant the 

 next season into the nursery. Their future treat- 

 ment will be the same as that of layers. Millar 

 suggests the rearing of cuttings in pots plunged in 

 a hotbed ; but in this experiment Knight and others 

 have failed, and recommend, instead of it, to plant 

 the cuttings in autumn under a south wall, where 

 they remain till April, when they are to be taken up, 

 placed in pots, and transferred to the hotbed. " In 

 this situation," says Knight, "they will vegetate 

 strongly, and emit roots in such abundance, that 

 not one cutting in a hundred, with proper attention, 

 will fail." A mellow, fertile loam is the soil in which 

 the mulberry succeeds best, and the standard is the 

 form generally given to it ; but the experiments of 

 "Williams and Knight give reason to believe that the 

 fruit would be improved were we to train the tree 

 against a south wall, in either the horizontal or stel- 

 late form.J 



In pruning the mulberry we ought to aim at two 

 things : diminishing the luxuriant growth of the tree, 



* Knight, f Idem. 



t Loudon. Hort. Trans,, vol. ii., p. 92, and vol. iii., p. 66. 



