72 OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART I. 



water. Add 20 Ibs. weight of cow-dung, mixed with an equal 

 quantity of fine rich soil. By working the mixture for a long 

 time and carefully, you reduce it to the consistency of whitewash. 

 In this steep the roots of your plants just before putting them into 

 the ground. The earth thrown after them into the hole sticks to 

 the roots, which immediately begin to swell. At the very first 

 movement of sap rootlets appear through the coating, which gives 

 them immediate manure ; and not only brings on, but secures the 

 further formation of roots."* 



CUTTINGS. 



SEASON. 



Some plants may be propagated by cuttings at nearly all 

 times of the year, but the majority most successfully in 

 the Rains. Some of our choicer plants, natives of a cold 

 climate, and that are in vigorous growth only in the Cold season, 

 cannot be multiplied by cuttings successfully except at that 

 season. 



Cuttings, for instance, of Stephanotis strike readily in the 

 Eains, and cuttings of Habrothamnus, Aloysia, and Verbenas in 

 the Cold season ; but put down the former in the Cold season, 

 and the latter in the Kains, and in neither case will they 

 succeed. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Some cuttings strike so readily that it is almost immaterial 

 how they are put into the ground. But most cuttings, it has 

 been ascertained, strike more readily by being inserted sloping- 

 wise in the ground, than when they are planted upright. 

 Indeed it is well to lay them so slopingwise, that their summits 

 be not more than an inch high above the ground, and then 

 earth up, and cover all but the two uppermost buds. The 

 cuttings thus protected are not nearly so liable to become dried 

 up and to perish as when almost their whole length is left 

 exposed to the air. 



The end of the cutting which is to be inserted in the soil should 

 be cut across with a clean cut just below a leaf bud (Fig. 9, a). 

 Some gardeners are of opinion that slips strike more readily 

 than cuttings. A slip is a small shoot pulled off a plant at its 



* < Gardeners' Chronicle,' May 21, 1859. 



