CHAPTER XIV 



CUTTAGE, GRAFTING, BUDDING, AND 

 LAYERING 



School garden work offers favorable opportunities for a 

 number of exercises in the propagation of plants by several 

 different methods. Many of these can be carried on in the 

 school room during winter weather or on stormy days when 

 outside work is impossible. After the methods are learned 

 much of the practice work may be done at home by both young 

 and old. The products may be very useful. 



1. Starting Slips. — In a. shallow box of moist, clean sand, plant 

 a, number of cuttings or slips of such house plants as are gfown 

 in the window boxes and pots at school or at home. Try chrysan- 

 themum, gerajiium (Fig. 90), begonia, carnation, fuchsia, and coleus. 

 Keep the box in a moderately warm place and water the soil fre- 

 quently. If the sun is bright, the box may be shaded by covering 

 with a single layer of newspaper. The slips are made by cutting 

 a few inches of the healthy shoots, usually using the tip portion. 

 Remove much of the old leaf surface, even some of the newer leaves 

 may be removed or reduced with scissors. After a week or so, lift 

 out some of the slips by raising the sand about them. Do not pull 

 them out. When the roots have become well formed, the slips may 



' be transplanted to pots or well-drained cans of garden soil, and cared 

 for in the usual way for house plants. 



The student should understand that the leaf surface is 

 reduced to prevent much of the evaporation until the roots are 

 formed a^d able to take up moisture from the wet sand. 

 Clean sharp sand is used, as it will not cause the rotting of 

 the stems as garden loam would. Much ^ interest will be 

 aroused by these exercises, as new plants may be formed of 

 so many different house plants. 



2. Leaf Cuttings. — Make slips of leaves of such plants as 

 begonia, sansevieria, or other fleshy-leaved plants. Either the whole 

 or a portion of the leaf may be used, and the ba«e of the blade 

 placed in sharp wet sand and cared for as with stem slips. Aa 



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