PROPAGATION. 221 



riity to make the trial, in order to add to the delica- 

 cies of his employer's table. 



The only other methods of artificial propagation are 

 performed on herbaceous plants. Bulbs which do not 

 produce offsets readily, or from which offsets are re- 

 quired, are managed so as to yield them plentifully by 

 cutting off the upper half of the bulb. This prevents 

 flowering and prompts the viviparous principle into 

 extraordinary action, so that a numerous progeny are 

 produced. Tubers having many buds, or eyes as they 

 are called, are separable into as many sections as 

 there are eyes, so that they may be propagated to any 

 extent ; and to show the vast complication of gems 

 existing in a tuber of, or in a single eye of a potato, 

 we have only to instance the means pursued to mul- 

 tiply a new or favourite sort when only a few, or a 

 single one is possessed by the cultivator. In the 

 month of April, or earlier, the tuber is placed in a 

 mild hot-bed ; and as soon as the shoots that rise in 

 succession from it are three or four inches long, they 

 are slipped off and planted out in open ground. This 

 planting of slips may continue till the beginning of 

 July : for so long will the tuber continue to throw up 

 shoots in number almost incredible ; each eye throw- 

 ing up many stems, which are all separable as inde- 

 pendent plants; and, thus detached, yield a far more 

 numerous return of tubers than would have been 

 produced by the mother disposed of in any other way. 

 Tubers of congenial natures are capable of being 

 grafted on each other, and are sometimes useful in the 



