Propagation 43 



the stalk and the whole planted so deep in the 

 soil that the eye is six inches below the level, 

 a fine plant will be the result. 



The eye must have a tuber to nourish it, and a 

 tuber must have an eye, or there will be no plant. 

 The neck of the tuber is often very slender, and 

 it is fatal to break or even strain it. The cir- 

 culation between the two seems to travel close 

 under the surface of this neck, so that the slight- 

 est injury destroys its life. 



This condition can also be used to advantage 

 when two eyes are to be found in one knuckle. 

 If the neck is not too slender, the whole may be 

 split down the middle with a sharp knife, and if 

 the neck is not strained, two perfectly good 

 plants will be the result. Of course if the half 

 neck should become strained the eye connected 

 with it will not grow. 



Two instruments are necessary for the sepa- 

 rating of dahlia tubers — a pair of very small 

 pruning shears and a sharp-pointed knife with 

 slightly flexible blade. A new cheap kitchen 

 knife, generally used for cutting vegetables, is 

 what I always get. Such knives cost ten cents — 

 they even did during the war — and two or three 

 of them, allowing for breakage, suflSces to cut 

 up five or six hundred tubers each spring. 



Usually by the end of March or early April 



