HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 179 



&c, have been so often repeated, that a recapitulation of such directions is 

 not needed here. 



Transplanting should not be performed during hard frosts, as the air is 

 injurious to the fibres. It is good to mix very well rotted manure, or small 

 charcoal, with the soil to put about the roots. It is a good plan to put long 

 manure or straw over the surface, around trees planted in the fall, but it 

 should be removed by the first of April at latest, and the soil forked up so 

 that the genial warmth of the sun and air may heat the soil, and excite the 

 roots to make new fibres, before the leaves begin to make too great a draught 

 upon them. Some persons think that if a plant has moisture at its roots it 

 must thrive, never considering that it requires a combination of heat and 

 moisture to grow plants. I could say more on this subject, and also on con- 

 tinual watering of plants in hot weather, but I fear I have already trans- 

 gressed too far on your pages, and on the patience of your readers. 



Walter Elder. 



PROPAGATION OF TREES BY CUTTINGS IN SUMMER, 



BY A PRACTITIONER. 



When a cutting of any deciduous tree is planted in autumn, winter, or 

 spring, it contains within it a portion of the true, as it has been called, or 

 vital sap of the tree of which it once formed a part. This fluid, relatively 

 to plants, is very closely analagous to the arterial blood in animals ; and I 

 shall, therefore, to distinguish it from the watery fluid which rises abun- 

 dantly through the alburnum, call it the arterial sap of the tree. Cuttings 

 of some species of trees very freely emit roots and leaves, whilst others 

 usually produce a few leaves only, and then die, and others scarcely exhibit 

 any signs of life ; but no cutting ever possesses the power of regenerating 

 and adding to itself vitally a single particle of matter, till it has acquired 

 mature and efficient foliage. A part of the arterial sap previously in the 

 cutting assumes an organic solid form, and the cutting, in consequence, 

 necessarily becomes, to some extent, exhausted. 



Summer cuttings possess the advantage of having mature and efficient 



foliage ; but such foliage is easily injured or destroyed, and if it be not 



carefully and skilfully managed, it dies. These cuttings, such as I have 



lly scon employed, have some mature and efficient foliage, and other 



