CALLUSING OF CUTTINGS. 



57 



gooseberries, grapes, and many ornamental trees and 

 shrubs. Hard-wood evergreen cuttings, when taken in 

 the fall, are usually set at once, as their foliage 

 will not allow them to be buried with safety; 

 but in this case, the cuttings are kept "quiet" 

 or dormant for a time, to allow callusing to 

 progress. If cuttings are buried so deep that 

 they cannot sprout, callusing may be hastened 

 by placing them in a mild temperature. Sin- 

 gle-eye grape cuttings are sometimes packed 

 between layers of sand in a barrel, and the 

 barrel is set under a forcing-house bench 

 where the temperature is about 50°. Eight or 

 ten inches of sand is usually placed over the 

 top layer. In this manner, cuttings which 

 have been obtained in winter or early spring 

 may be callused before planting time. 



It is a singular fact that the lower end of 

 the cutting, as it stood upon the parent plant, 

 produces roots, and the upper end produces 

 leaves and shoots, even if the cutting is in- 

 verted. And if the cutting is divided into 

 several parts, each part will still exhibit this 

 same differentiation of function. This is true 

 even of root cuttings, and of other cuttings 

 which possess no buds. The reasons for this 

 localization of function are not clearly under- 

 stood, although the phenomenon has often 

 been the subject of study. Upon this fact 

 depends the hastening of the rooting process 

 in inverted cuttings by the direct application of heat to the 

 bottoms, and it likewise indicates that care must be taken 

 to plant cuttings in approximately their natural direction 

 if straight and handsome plants are desired. This remark 

 applies particularly to horse-radish "sets," for if these are 

 placed wrong end up (even though they are root cuttings), 

 the resulting root will be very crooked. 



