114 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



summer from a blueberry plant that has been pruned to the stump. In the 

 swamp blueberry these have few or no flowering buds and often are 3 to 5 

 feet in height and a quarter of an inch or more in diameter at the base. 



3. About 4 to 5 inches is a suitable length for finished cuttings. A 

 sharp thin-bladed knife should be used. In the finished cutting the upper 

 end of the diagonal cut at the base of the cutting should come just below 

 a sound bud, and the cut at the upper end of the cutting should be about 

 an eighth of an inch above a sound bud. If the cuts are first made with 

 pruning shears, Remove with the knife the bruised wood at the cut ends. 

 The diagonal knife cuts should be as short as is practicable without bruis- 

 ing the bark or splitting or straining the wood. Cuttings that have been 

 kept in cold storage should be recut at both ends, so as to present clean 

 surfaces that show no discoloration. In order to avoid infection of the cut- 

 tings, the knife must be kept clean. This may be done conveniently by 

 dipping the blade in alcohol and wiping it on a clean towel. The cuttings 

 must not be allowed to become dry. This is easily prevented by laying 

 them in the fold of a clean moist towel. 



4. The coldframe may be of the usual form, the top about 1 foot above 

 the surface of the cutting bed at the front and 2 feet at the back, and tightly 

 constructed of material not less than an inch in thickness, with closely 

 fitting sash of the ordinary kind. The cutting bed, 4 inches in depth, 

 should be laid down over a groundwork of gravel or other material that 

 will provide good drainage. On this groundwork place about 1 inch of 

 clean chopped sphagnum moss and over the moss about 3 inches of pure 

 clean sand. Moisten the sand with clean rain water or other pure water 

 |free from lime) from a sprinkhng pot. 



5. After making deep slits at suitable intervals in the sand with some 

 •tlean implement, set the cuttings in the slits at a spacing of about 2 to 3 

 inches each way according to size, the base of the cutting being in the sand 

 .a little above the sphagnum, and see that the sand is so closely and firmly 

 packed about the base of the cutting that the cut surface is in contact with 

 the sand, but be careful not to injure the delicate raw tissue at the base of 

 the cutting by pushing forcibly into the sand. Smooth the surface of the 

 bed by a final watering. Cover the frame closely with the sash, so that 

 the air within will be moist. 



6. Do not allow the temperature inside the frame to go above 65° F. 

 Prolonged temperatures above 70° are likely to ruin the cuttings. Do not, 

 on the other hand, allow the cutting bed or the cuttings to freeze. 



7. Shade the frame with white muslin at a height of 2 to 7 feet above 

 the frame, so as to keep the sunlight off the glass and at the same time to per- 

 mit a sweep of air between the glass and the shade. The shade should be 

 so arranged as to be removable on cloudy days or at any time when the 

 frame is shaded by other objects. 



8. Keep the air inside the box saturated or nearly saturated with mois- 

 ture. This condition will be shown by the condensation of the moisture 

 on the under side of the glass at night or at other cool portions of the day. 



