54 THE TREE PROPAGATOR AND PLANTER. 



right angles at the base immediately below a leaflet, 

 detach the two lower leaves, and insert them in 5-inch 

 pots, 48's, up to the leaves. The soil should be fine- 

 sifted sandy peat. Put four or five in each pot. Close 

 the soil well to the cuttings, give a good watering, and 

 plunge the pots up to the rims in a tan-bed or over a 

 tank with a mild bottom heat. Cover the pots with 

 hand-glasses or large bell-glasses, and keep close until 

 struck, shading from the strong light and sun. By the 

 following spring the cuttings will all be well rooted, and 

 should then be potted off and treated as for mature 

 plants. I have soon had good plants this way, and 

 recommend it before grafting, as both room and time 

 are saved. 



The Daphne (Thymelacea). 



The Daphnes are among our most superb shrubs, 

 and are great favourites, both on account of their 

 habit and fragrance as a flower. For fragrance I 

 know of nothing comparable to the Mezereum when in 

 flower. One or two good plants of this are sufficient 

 to perfume a small garden. The D. Cneorum is a pro- 

 fuse flowerer, and forms a splendid dwarf bed on a 

 lawn. The Indica rubra and 2". alba are most desir- 

 able greenhouse shrubs for cut blooms. 



The propagation of the Daphnes is sometimes by 

 seed, but chiefly by cuttings or grafting. By seed — of 

 all that bear seed, sown in autumn or early spring. 

 The Mezereum is mostly by seed sown in the open 

 ground in drills 2 inches deep in a warm border, or in 

 seed-pans 4 inches deep, the seed being covered 1-i- 

 inches with soil. This should be half sandy fine peat, 

 and half maiden loam, well mixed, a good drainage 

 being given. This must be well looked to, as the 

 seedlings should remain two years in the seed-pans, for 

 they are too small at one year old to remove. More- 

 over, some of the seed may not vegetate till the second 

 season after sowing. The second season the seedlings 

 may be potted off, or planted out into beds of fine peat 

 and maiden soil, although the Mezereum will do very 



