76 GARDEN AND FARM TOPICS. 



made by making one rather slanting cut between the 

 joints, or about a quarter of an inch above the eye. 

 About one-third of the leaf is cut off, mainly for the 

 reason of allowing more cuttings to be put in the cutting 

 bench. If by any accident the leaf is all taken off, a 

 Rose cutting in this condition will never root to make a 

 good plant; or if, from any cause, the leaves drop off 

 while the cuttings are in the process of rooting, not one 

 in ten will ever make a satisfactory plant. Besides the 

 system of using cuttings made from one eye or bud, 

 the " blind wood," so-called, (that is, the shoots that do 

 not produce flower buds,) is also used, and generally 

 makes the safest and best kind of cuttings, as these blind 

 shoots are hard and slender, and root rather quicker 

 than cuttings made from single eyes. These shoots 

 are usually too short-jointed to be made into single eye 

 cuttings, and have of ten two or more eyes in the cutting; 

 but the foliage should be shortened off about one-third, 

 as in the single eye cuttings, A good length for a Rose 

 cutting is three inches, though in some short-jointed 

 kinds no more than one inch length of cutting can be 

 obtained. 



There is no difficulty in propagating Roses from cut- 

 tings of healthy young wood, if // is grown under glass, 

 anytime from September to May; but during the months 

 of June, July, and August, it is a process requiring great 

 care and attention. We, however, grow hundreds of 

 thousands in this way by the following method: About 

 the middle of May we plant out our stock plants on the 

 green-house benches, in four or five inches of rather 

 poor soil, containing not a particle of manure, the object 

 being to induce a hard and slender woody growth of 

 cuttings, instead of a soft and pithy one. Obtaining 

 cuttings of this kind, there is no great difficulty in root- 



