fS 



so that the glass may be partially removed for ventilation and reduction of tempera 

 ture without exposure to the sun. In this process there is no difficulty but such aa 

 arises from the constant watchfulness that is required to regulate temperature and 

 moisture, A person who is determined to become a good cultivator, will succeed in 

 this, and find both his habit of attention and his knowledge greatly improved by the 

 practice of one season. This is a miniature " propagating-house," and requires all of 

 the attention of a large one; and in this many of the best of plants may be grown. 

 [f it is desired to strike many cuttings, pots may be filled with very sandy soil of 

 little fertility or retentiveness; the cuttings being set about one inch apart around the 

 edge. These, when rooted, which may be in from four to six weeks, may be care- 

 fully taken out and set singly into pots, or set into the ground. If the operation is 

 done with care, and the plants shaded from the sun for a week or two, gradually 

 lessening the shade by continuing it only in the middle of the day, few or no plants 

 need be lost. Protection from tearing winds is needed or desirable, for a great part 

 of the season, to secure the best growth of the young vines, so that both wood and 

 roots may be well matured the first season. 



With care and suitable appliances, vines better than from cuttings may be grown 

 from single " eyes," or buds, each one making a strong, well-rooted plant. We have 

 said that each bud, or "eye," as professionally called, is an infont plant without root, 

 not designed in regular process of nature to be detached and form an independent 

 vine; but by art this may be effected, and the process is called " propagation from or 

 by single eyes." To do this, the eye must be encouraged at the proper time to shoot, 

 and be sustained until roots are formed, and the young shoot has made its first 

 growth. Roots can not be formed to much extent without the action of the leaves, 

 and the small piece of wood which is attached to the eye affords but little sustenance 

 to the leaves — so little that a dry, moving atmosphere, particularly if aided by the direct 

 rays of the sun, will soon dry them up, causing death. Leaves will exist for a 

 length of time in an atmosphere so moist that they take nearly as much moisture 

 from it as they yield to it, if their operations are not excited to great activity by too 

 strong light. Thus our indications are, shade and uniform moisture. To these con- 

 ditions must be addled another, that is, heat, to the medium in which the eyes are 

 placed for rooting, (technically, "striking,") a little above that of the atmosphere pro- 

 vided for the leaves. This is called bottom heat, as it is applied below the plants ; 

 and to command success it must be nearly uniform. The eyes are not put into fertile 

 soil, but sand ; for the roots at first, though large, and apparently able, do not take 

 nourishment fi'om the ground, and for a time the larger the foliage becomes the less 

 substance it has; but as soon as little feeding fibers appear on the sides of the long 

 roots, the plants must be set in food-supplying soil, and very soon thereafter fully 

 exposed to the sun and air, but not to the severities of atmospheric changes, which 

 they are not yet for a long time able to bear uninjured ; and it may be well to bear in 

 mind the indisputable truth, that in man, beast, or plant, the early age, passed under 

 circumstances most favorable to perfect development, safely guarded from injury, is 

 the best preparation for a vigorous, productive maturity. Propagating-houses, it must 

 be understood, are not "hot-houses," but simply dwellings to guard the tender begin- 

 ning from injury or hindrance, that would be damaging or destructive ; and vines 

 well managed in them acquire a hardihood and vigor which bring them to an earlier 

 and more enduring maturity than any other process, except that of the tender nursing 

 of the mother, in the form of layers, which we have noted. The abuse of propagat- 

 ing-houses is in attempting to grow the vines out of season, making summer of win 

 ter; in having them so small as not to afford room for healthy growing: in suffering 

 too high temperature, etc. 



Plants from single eyes, if well made, are in no respect inferior to those grown 

 from seed, as they very soon become entirely new wood; and plants that are started 

 and grown for a time in pots, are muc'i better supplied with fibrous roots than the^ 

 oan be in the open ground, except by layering with best care and skill. 



