4 DECORATIVE PLANTS, TREES AND SHRUBS 



It is not possible for the same sentiment to attach to anything else, 

 especially if it be of an evanescent and fugitive character. The 

 making of a tree which is to gladden our children's children long 

 after the hands that built it are folded to rest is a huge privilege 

 and brings its own reward. To see it reach goodly proportions is 

 such a satisfaction and is a payment in kind that neither capitalist 

 nor trade unionist can either swell or abate. And here is the great 

 difference the dividing line between the soft-wooded and hard- 

 wooded departments : the one works for to-day and the almost 

 immediate future, the other for the near as well as the distant future. 

 Let neither one underrate the other, for they are the complement 

 of each other. 



THE STAFF 



We will take another look at our staff. It is so organised that the 

 propagator who is at, or near, the head of it is virtually an indoor 

 man. He has his propagating house, and if, as is generally the case, 

 he does roses, he keeps it full throughout the greater part of the year. 

 He has many cuttings to strike requiring heat ; he has many kinds 

 of shrubs to graft, especially of variegated forms, and for these he 

 must be well equipped indoors. He has ranges of pits in which to 

 bring on his plants after grafting and his cuttings when rooted ; he 

 has frames and box-lights in which to put in cuttings of half-ripened 

 wood later, and he has also his rood or two of " cutting ground " in 

 which, still later, he strikes many kinds of cuttings which do not 

 need the protection of glass. 



Among the many subjects he has to graft are cypresses, yews, 

 thujas ; hollies, ivies, clematis ; ligustrums, wistarias, magnolias 

 and others . In the same pit he strikes young wood of roses , clematis , 

 ampelopsis, deutzias, golden privet, solanum jasminoides and 

 perhaps a score of others. The grafts when " taken " and the cut- 

 tings when potted off are transferred to the pits and other things take 

 their place. 



In the box-lights, as per Fig. 2, a general collection of evergreen 

 and deciduous cuttings are struck, these being made and inserted 

 after the middle of July. They have to stand a whole year, when 

 they are ready for planting out as soon as favourable weather 

 comes. 



