TAMING THE WILD BLUEBERRY 111 



monly 1 to 3 inches, their further growth is self-terminated by the death 

 of the tip. After the leaves have reached their full size and acquired the 

 dark-green color of maturity the time has come for the development of 

 roots. 



9. When the first shoot has reached this rooting stage a half-inch layer 

 of finely sifted rotted peat, 2 parts, and clean sand, 1 part, should be placed 

 on the surface of the cutting bed and moistened well with water. A time- 

 saving and perhaps desirable modification of this treatment is to use this 

 mixture of peat and sand as the original covering of the cuttings, described 

 in paragraph 3. 



10. The new growth, which if it had originated above the sand would 

 be like an ordinary shoot, was transformed in working its way through the 

 sand and became a scaly, erect rootstock, which on reaching the surface 

 of the sand continued its development into a leafy shoot. During the 

 spring and early summer, roots form in abundance on the lower or rootstock 

 portion of these shoots. 



11. After a shoot is well rooted it commonly, though not invariably 

 makes secondary twig growth the same season, usually from a bud in the 

 axil of the uppermost leaf. If the rooting of the shoot has not already been 

 ascertained by direct examination, the making of such secondary growth 

 is good evidence that rooting has actually taken place. 



12. When a shoot is well rooted, with roots 1 to 2 inches in length, it is 

 ready to be potted. If the shoot has not already disconnected itself 

 from the dead cutting, it should be carefully severed with a sharp knife. 

 In the process of tubering, the behavior of the cuttings is essentially identi- 

 cal with that of real tubers, like those of the potato. The original cutting 

 dies, but the sprouts that arose from it root at the base and form inde- 

 pendent plants. 



13. The rooted shoots should be potted in clean 2-inch earthenware pots 

 in the standard blueberry-soil mixture already described. 



14. The pots should be bedded in moist sand up to the rim in a glass- 

 covered frame or box, well lighted but protected from direct sunUght, 

 and slightly ventilated but with a saturated or nearly saturated atmosphere. 



15. In order to secure rapid growth, the rooted plants should be gradu- 

 ally accustomed to a well-ventilated atmosphere and then to half sunlight, 

 this adjustment extending over a period of about three to four weeks. 



16. If preferred, the rooted shoots may remain in the original cutting 

 bed until tJae following spring, the cutting bed being exposed during the 

 winter to freezing temperatures, but mulched with oak leaves, and the 

 plants may then be transferred, with their whole root mat intact, to a 

 peat and sand nursery bed at a spacing of about a foot each way. 



Where propagating is to be done on a sufficiently large scale, out- 

 door coldframes may be used instead of cutting boxes. Miss 

 Elizabeth C. White, of New Lisbon, N. J., who has brought to- 



