98 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 
weather is very cool. When the cuttings have rooted—and 
this takes considerable knowledge and experience to judge 
—the little plants may be reset in separate pots; these are 
plunged in a box filled with sand, which should be well 
watered so that the moisture may be absorbed by the earth 
in the little pots. It is a nice undertaking, requiring skill, 
watchfulness and good judgment, and the special require- 
ments of various plants are too numerous to touch upon, so 
I give nothing but a general description of the method. 
This is an excellent way to root slips of roses, cut late in the 
autumn, and kept through the winter in damp sand in the 
cellar, or buried deep under a foot or more of earth in the 
garden where they will not freeze. They should be fresh 
and green when set in early spring. 
Observe another point of importance: there is no one time 
when plants should be lifted, divided and reset. Some pre- 
fer to move the first of May; others like to be taken when 
dead asleep in a dormant condition, just before hard freez- 
ing weather sets in, or very early in the spring before growth 
begins. I have tried to indicate this in the appendix, as far 
as I could learn the choice of plants; but it is a matter for 
study and experiment. 
There is another delicate question for the gardener to 
consider, and that is what.sort of protection should be given 
to plants in winter—in short, the matter of mulching. I 
have known delightfully candid people who frankly asked 
what it was to mulch a plant. I like people who want to 
know things (provided they do not use that expression of 
surprise, “I want to know!”’), who are willing to confess that 
we come into this life like a desk with pigeon-holed compart- 
ments—all empty—to be filled only as we experience loss, 
failure and disappointment, unless a fairy presides at birth 
and bestows that rare gift of being able to take advice. I 
