IN THE FRONT YARD. 173 



at either end. The poor thing will do its best to put 

 a head on itself, but cannot make it. At the end of 

 the first year the root will jet be sound, the second 

 year the top will begin to decay, and the third year it 

 will be rotten. The upper portion of this same root, 

 where it breaks from the plant, will have a good show 

 for forming a head. Kinds differ. The Edulis Su- 

 perba and others of its class are stored with vitality. 

 I have often stripped off roots, like fingers from the 

 hand, and planted them, and almost invariably a bud 

 would form the first year and be ready for business 

 the next spring. Sometimes it will take two years to 

 form a head, but in the main you will succeed better 

 to carefully divide and plant root and bud together. 



A good way to accelerate the development of roots 

 and latent buds is to pack in moss or moist earth, and 

 keep them over winter in a cellar which does not freeze. 

 I have often known roots to develop twice the buds 

 they had before, and those with no buds at all by spring- 

 would have some fairly well started. 



PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 



The propagation of the pacony as compared with 

 fruit trees and shrubs is slow at best, so grafting is 

 often resorted to. 



Understand, every paeony root is anxious to live. 

 We show elsewhere how a root will work three years 

 forming a callous at either end in the effort to live. 

 Take a root far enough removed from what we term 

 the crown, so it cannot develop a bud of its own, and 



