74 OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART I. 



Strawberries, the difference is much the same as that between 

 common shoots and suckers in ordinary shrubs and trees. 



" The lower trailing shoots, employed for propagation, form plants 

 very like those from suckers ; healthy, vigorous, and disposed to 

 occupy a large space, without blooming. 



" Cutting of the upper shoots produces flowering laterals in a very 

 short time. And a fine blooming specimen may even be raised in 

 one season by taking off the extremities of the longest shoots as 

 cuttings. Indeed the dimensions and early blooming of the plant 

 may be regulated by the distance at which the cutting is taken from 

 the main stem. 



" Cuttings from the extremity flower speedily, and in a dwarf 

 condition. 



" Cuttings from a shoot in an early stage of its growth will con- 

 stitute larger specimens, and be longer in bearing flowers." * 



METHODS OF STRIKING AND SOIL. 



A large number of the plants kept for distribution in the 

 gardens of the Agri-Horticultural Society are raised from cut- 

 tings laid down in common garden-soil during the Rains in an 

 open situation without shelter either from sun or wet weather. 

 And possibly a situation thus exposed to the full action of 

 the atmosphere is the very best for them ; for of all things 

 most baneful to cuttings is that tendency in the earth to become 

 sour, which occurs during the Rains, in situations at all shel- 

 tered and secluded. The native nurserymen I have observed, 

 to strike their cuttings, make use of a mellow soapy description 

 of clay, seemingly the substratum thrown up in the cleaning of 

 tanks. This appears to be singularly tenacious of wet, and yet 

 to have no tendency whatever to turn sour. 



To propagate the choicer kinds of plants, however, a more 

 careful mode of proceeding must be adopted. Cuttings of these 

 put down in the open ground will not succeed, but require to 

 be struck in sand, under glass. The method of effecting this on 

 a large scale, adopted by Mr. Eoss, formerly head gardener of 

 the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, is described by him at con- 

 siderable length in the Agri-Horticultural Society's * Journal,' 

 vol. ii. p. 384. This method, briefly stated, is as follows : A 

 small piece of ground in an open situation is enclosed round 

 with a wall two feet high. This is filled in with the finest sand 



* ' Magazine of Botany,' vol. viii. p. 205. 



