CARE OF CUTTINGS. 103 



house as already described, or if there is room in 

 the houses proper keep them there. Never allow 

 them, under any circumstances, to wilt, for if they 

 do it means another reduction in the total output 

 of salable flowers. Where facilities are at hand 

 the cuttings can be rooted in a cutting bench, 

 using about three inches of sand firmed and 

 watered. Put the cuttings in rows about one and 

 one-half inches apart in the row. The cutting 

 bench must be carefully shaded and must be so 

 arranged that currents of air cannot sweep over 

 it. The shed house, with glass roof sloping to the 

 north, already described, forms an excellent place 

 for such a bench. It requires four to eight weeks 

 for cuttings put in sand as described to root prop- 

 erly. They may stay in longer than this without 

 injury, but as soon as they are well rooted they 

 should be transferred to lath boxes containing 

 soil, one hundred to a box. If there is space in 

 the greenhouse the rooted cuttings may be set in 

 one of the beds. Set in rows two inches apart 

 and one inch in the row, using a dibble made by 

 trimming to a point a piece of broom handle six 

 or eight inches long. Never use old soil 

 for these cuttings, that is, soil that 

 has once been used for violets. It 

 costs very little extra labor to get fresh soil for 

 the purpose and the labor will pay a hundred fold. 

 The principal object of this transplanting is 

 to get good, strong, clean roots. We have had 



