18 PROPAGATION 



Provided the earth and the branchlet can be brought together, very few 

 plants indeed refuse to take root. But, of course, this is often difficult or 

 impossible. A plan is sometimes adopted of splitting a flower-pot in two, 

 tying the two parts together again round a branchlet that has been 

 previously notched or ringed, and filling the pot with earth, or earth and 

 moss mixed. On the Continent, specially designed vessels made of two 

 pieces of tin attached by a hinge are used for this purpose. The trouble 

 of keeping the soil moist is against its general use, but where it is adopted 

 the shady side of the tree or shrub should be operated on, and ingenious 

 people may devise various ways of keeping the soil moist, such as placing 

 a slightly leaking vessel of water above it. 



In nurseries, where large stocks are required for sale, plants known as 

 stools are devoted entirely to the production of shoots for layering. Dwarf 

 shrubs, like heaths and daphnes, are often layered by merely weighting a 

 branch to the ground by placing a stone on it. 



CUTTINGS. 



Next to seeds, cuttings afford the best and most important means of 

 propagation. Although trees are, no doubt, on the whole best raised 

 from seeds, shrubs raised from cuttings are in most cases apparently quite 

 as healthy and long-lived as seedlings. As compared with grafting, the 

 method has the advantage of putting them on their own roots, which 

 obviates the sucker nuisance. 



Many more trees and shrubs can be increased by cuttings than is 

 generally supposed, for instance, elms, birches, hornbeams, apples, and 

 cherries are amongst those that can be so raised. The process is with 

 them not always a certain one, but it is still a possible one. It would, 

 indeed, be rash to say of any exogenous tree that its increase by means of 

 cuttings is absolutely impossible. The best, or perhaps the only possible 

 way, must be found by experience, although old and professional pro- 

 pagators seem to know by intuition when is the best time, and what are 

 the best methods of rooting cuttings of plants they have not even seen 

 before. 



A cutting differs from a layer chiefly in the fact that it is completely 

 severed from the mother plant from the first. Theoretically the pro- 

 pagator's work is to keep the piece of shoot alive and fresh until it is 

 able, by the production of its own roots, to live independently. His chief 

 aim is to prevent undue transpiration, i.e., the loss of more moisture 

 from its tissues than it can reabsorb. It follows, therefore, that cuttings 

 of succulent leafy young growth, which transpire freely and are subject to 

 early decay, must take root soon, if at all. A close atmosphere for all, 

 and a brisk bottom heat for many, is needed. But for cuttings in a leaf- 



