General Notices. 191 



in the first instance, but the continued applications from the watering-pot 

 would soon bring about all the evils we have been describing. On the con- 

 trary, if coarse lumpy material, full of vegetable fibre, is employed, it will 

 require to be firmly pressed into the pot ; notwithstanding this, the water 

 will percolate through the whole without interruption ; and, in the absence 

 of water, air fills up the crevices, as it should do, thus securing a rapid and 

 healthy action. Some of the very coarsest of the soil should be placed im- 

 mediately on the moss, in order to render the drainage more complete. 

 These observations, with those which have preceded them, relating to the 

 same subject, will be some guide to the amateur in a pleasing avocation ; 

 they will enable him to proceed on clear and definite ground. To the gar- 

 dener in the higher walks of his profession — he that neither slumbeieth nor 

 sleepeth on the road to knowledge — they may be in some measure uncalled 

 for ; but to many, we trust, they will prove useful ; and if plants in future 

 are badly potted, blame not. {Id. p. 168.) 



[We cannot too strongly recommend these remarks to the most careful 

 perusal of every amateur, or practical gardener. — Ed.'\ 



How to strike Cuttings. — M. Neumann, chief superintendent in the Gar- 

 den of Plants in Paris, has lately published a work on the art of striking 

 cuttings, which is now being translated in the Gardener^s Chronicle. We 

 extract the following as the introductory remarks, and shall endeavor to find 

 room for other portions of the work as they appear. They should receive 

 the particular attention of all lovers of plants : — 



No. I. General Considerations. — The Creator has willed that plants should 

 multiply themselves by their seeds; but man, still more to increase the 

 riches of the vegetable kingdom, as if he found himself in too narrow a com- 

 pass, incessantly assists Nature, whether he evokes the mysteries of artifi- 

 cial fecundation, or propagates species by grafts, layers, or cuttings. This 

 last method of propagation has arrived at such importance in our days, that 

 I have thought it my duty to state the nature of the proceedings, which 

 practice, and a long study of the numerous plants entrusted to my care, 

 have suggested to me. A cutting, properly speaking, is a part of a plant, 

 which, being detached, is placed in the ground, where, under the influence 

 of different circumstances, it ought to develop itself, and produce an individ- 

 ual similar to the parent plant. Monocotyledonous plants will only strike 

 by cuttings from their branches ; but dicotyledonous plants offer for propa- 

 gation, so to speak, all the parts which compose them — roots, branches, 

 trunks, or portions of them, herbaceous shoots, and leaves. With but few 

 exceptions, plants struck by cuttings demand constant attention ; a temper- 

 ature and moisture proportioned to the nature of the subject, are the condi- 

 tions which ought especially to engage the attention of the operator ; for the 

 principal precaution is, to secure the cuttings at the same time from rotting 

 and drying. With this end in view, we keep them in media of equal tem- 

 perature and moisture ; we prevent evaporation of the soil, and arrest the 

 perspiration of the cuttings. Plants which are soft-wooded, or have much 

 cellular tissue, such as Malvaceae, Geraniacese Solanacea^, and others, take 

 root more easily, and demand less precaution, than the delicate, resinous. 



