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your nurseryman to be sent you in November. It 

 may be that you do not mind the cost, but plant as 

 carefully as you may, with all possible good fortune, 

 you will be lucky if you get any first-class blooms 

 the next year from these newly-moved plants. But 

 if you have plenty of good healthy stocks at home 

 ready to be budded, how much more speedy and 

 effectual and less costly the whole matter is ! Your 

 friend immediately cuts you off a shoot or two of 

 the required sorts with good buds on each, or 

 promises to send you them by post if there are 

 none now ready. If the leaves are at once snipped 

 off, all but the last inch of the footstalk of each, 

 they may be safely carried home, or they will 

 arrive in good condition by post, wrapped in damp 

 moss or paper shreds. Do not be afraid your 

 friend will refuse you, unless his plant is very 

 small, weakly, and precious ; not only from the 

 universal good-fellowship of the craft, but also 

 because he naturally expects that you will do the 

 same for him, and that the benefit will thus be 

 mutual. You put in these buds which have cost 

 you nothing but an exchange which you can very 

 well spare, and the very next summer you have 

 the shoots and flowers in their fullest vigour, with 

 the additional charm of watching a variety which 

 is new to you spring into leaf and bud and bloom 

 from the tiny bud which you brought home in your 

 pocket. 



What a pleasure, too, to help a beginner, or one 

 who has lost his plants, by sending a large parcel 

 of buds in early August when they are plentiful 

 and you can spare a good quantity of them. But 

 still, the choosing and cutting, preparation and 



