194 Principles of Plant Culture. 
a — Propagation by cuttings from dormant plants. 
370. The Time to Make the Cuttings. We have seen 
(177) that plant processes may not be wholly suspended 
during the dormant period. This is true not only of the 
plant as a whole, but also of detached parts of the plant, 
if they are protected from evaporation. If cuttings are 
taken from a plant in autumn, and stored during winter in 
a moist place of moderate temperature, the cut surfaces will 
partially callus over (73), and the formation of roots or buds 
may commence before spring. 
When new growing points must be developed before the 
cutting can form a plant, as with cuttings of the stem and 
roots of many species, cuttings of dormant plants are prefer- 
ably made at the beginning of the dormant period, i. e., in 
autumn, and placed during winter under conditions favoring 
the formation of new growing points. 
371. The Storage of Cuttings. Cuttings should be 
stored in a place sufficiently moist to prevent loss of water 
by evaporation, and warm enougb to favor moderate root 
growth. Cuttings with ready-formed buds must be kept 
cool enough to prevent growth of these. Root growth may 
proceed to some extent at temperatures too low to excite the 
buds. These conditions are usually fulfilled by covering the 
cuttings in damp sawdust, sand or loose loam, and storing 
them through the winter in a moist, moderately cool cellar, 
or by burying them in the open ground beneath the frost 
line. In mild climates, the latter plan is often preferable to 
storing cuttings in a cellar, and stem cuttings (373) of plants 
that do not root freely from the stem are frequently buried 
with the proximal end (116) uppermost. This gives them, to 
some extent, the advantage of bottom heat, (362a) since the 
