PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 97 



rooted and potted, and it afterward flourished as if noth- 

 ing had happened. It was an unexpected success, turn- 

 ing defeat into triumph, and relieving me somewhat from 

 the feeling of utter helplessness against the cut- worms. 

 I may add that the same cutting-dish, only eight inches 

 long, sometimes turned out in a" single week twenty-five 

 plants, and became during the season the fountain of a 

 large and gratuitous supply. 



So I am very confident that your cutting-dishes will be 

 sure "to pay" in the best sense, and in more ways than 

 one. Some plants are not easily obtained even with 

 money, but some friend of yours has a specimen which 

 can spare a cutting, and the dish soon puts you in pos- 

 session of a plant having the added fragrance of friend- 

 ship ; or you render a similar service to others, and if 

 " it is more blessed to give than to receive," your pleas- 

 ure is only the greater. Among yourselves, at least, you 

 will be very likely in this way to share the possession of 

 any highly prized plant, provided it will grow from cut- 

 tings. In all cases no small benefit will come from the 

 fact that the plants have been started ~by your own hands. 

 This will give you a new sense of power, and a feeling of 

 interest and ownership not connected with plants for 

 which you are indebted to other people's labor and skill. 

 And is not this a sufficient inducement to renew your 

 attempts to grow plants from cuttings ? 



SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS. 



In this whole matter of starting new plants for your- 

 selves a work well worth undertaking for its interest if 

 not for its profit you will be most likely to succeed if at 

 the outset you clearly understand some of the differences 

 between plants from seeds and plants from cuttings. Let 

 me therefore mention a few important facts, even though 

 you may already know them. 

 5 



