116 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



roots as well as the tops of selected wild plants might be utilized, 

 cuttings of the roots were made about 3 to 4 inches long and of all 

 sizes down to a little less than an eighth of an inch in diameter. 

 These were given the same treatment as tubered cuttings in cold- 

 frames. A high percentage of rooted plants resulted. This may 

 prove to be one of the most satisfactory methods of propagating 

 plants that have large root systems. 



Treatment of Young Plants. 



When blueberry plants, either large or small, are grown in porous 

 pots, the surface of the pot should never be allowed to become dry, 

 for the rootlets which grow through the soil to the wall of the pot 

 for air are extremely fine and easily killed by drying, to the great 

 injury of the plant. This danger may be eliminated by bedding the 

 pots to the rim in a well-drained bed of sand or by setting the pot 

 in another pot of 2 to 4 inches greater diameter, with a packing of 

 moist sphagnum moss between and broken crocks at the bottom. 



A burning of the young leaves and growing tips of twigs is often 

 produced by the hot sun from the middle of June to the middle of 

 September. Plants in pots or nursery beds are easily protected 

 from such injury and forced to their maximum growth by a half- 

 shade covering of slats, the slats and the spaces between being of 

 the same width. On cloudy days the shade should be removed. 

 It should not be used in the fall or spring. 



During the winter the rooted cuttings, or 1 -year-old plants, 

 should be kept outdoors, exposed to freezing temperatures, their 

 soil mulched with leaves, preferably oak leaves. When kept in a 

 warm greenhouse during the winter they make no growth before 

 spring. Even then their growth is abnormal, often feeble, or 

 sometimes deferred for a whole year. 



Field Planting. 



Plants from cuttings or rooted shoots are ready for permanent 



field planting when they are 1 or 2 years old and 6 to 18 inches high. 



It is a curious fact that these plants send out no new roots in 



