42 GARDENING FOR PLEASURE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY CUTTINGS. 



There is no more interesting operation to the amateur 

 gardener than that of increasing his stock of plants by 

 cuttings or slips. Heretofore, it was accounted a great 

 mystery, and unless with some of the commonest kinds 

 of Geraniums, few amateurs ever presumed to invade the 

 territory of the professional gardeners. Nearly all writers 

 on the subject had so befogged this simple matter with 

 technical nonsense, that few, not regularly brought up to 

 the business, presumed to attempt it. We now consider 

 it one of our simplest operations, far simpler than raising 

 many kinds of plants from seed, and though we raise 

 now over two millions of plants annually, and keep a 

 man with three assistants doing nothing else the entire 

 year but propagating plants from slips, yet we could take 

 any careful, intelligent man from among our garden 

 laborers, and install him as a competent propagator in a 

 month. Where plants are propagated from cuttings in 

 large numbers, we elevate a bench, usually four feet 

 wide, above the flue or hot- water pipes, to within a foot 

 or so of the glass at the front, and on this table or bench 

 we place three or four inches of sand, of any color or tex- 

 ture, provided it is not from the sea-shore, and contains 

 salt. This bench is boarded down in front, so as to confine 

 the heat from the flue or pipes under it, and give what 

 is called " bottom heat " ; the sand on a bench so formed 

 will indicate a temperature of perhaps seventy degrees, 

 while the atmosphere of the greenhouse, particularly dur- 

 ing the night, will be ten degrees less. Now, if the cut- 

 tings are in the right condition, and are inserted an inch 

 or so in this sand, freely watered, and shaded from the 

 sun from 9 or 10 A.M. to 3 or 4 P.M., cuttings of nearly 



