PETER HENDERSON & CO. S CATALOGUE OF SEEDS. 



PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY SUBS. 



An Extract from Peter Henderson's New Book, "Gardening for Pleasure. 



Nature provides abundantly for the reproduction of plants, and the difficulty of multiplying 

 by one method is compensated by the ease with which it may be done in another. Whenever we 

 find a plant takes root with difficulty from " slips " or cuttings, in nine cases out of ten we find 

 that it seeds freely, and gives us a ready means of increase. Thus we find the much admired 

 Centaureas, one kind of the "Dusty Millers," the white leaved plants now so much used in mass- 

 ing and for baskets, are exceedingly difficult and slow to root from cuttings, but are readily 

 raised from seeds. Our fine strains of blotched Petunias are also troublesome as cuttings, but 

 make plants quickly from seeds. The C}*clamen, with its turnip-like stem or bulb, could only 

 be propagated by cutting in pieces, disfiguring its shape, and requiring years to form a circular 

 bulb again, but here we have seed coming to our help which germinates freely, and makes a 

 flowering plant in one year. The Apple Geranium never affords proper cuttings from which to 

 make a plant, but it seeds freely, from which splendid plants can be produced in a few months. 

 So the Primulas and Cinerarias, both slow and uncertain from cuttings, seed freely. And so with 

 hundreds of other plants to which our space will not permit us to refer. There is no rule by 

 which we can designate what plants are best propagated by seeds, and what by cuttings, 

 experience being the only teacher, and even the experience of a lifetime is too short for those of, 

 us that have had the largest practice. j 



Seedling plants can be nearly as well raised in the window of a sitting-room or parlor, proi 

 vided the temperature is right, as in a greenhouse, for seeds do not need a strong direct light 

 while germinating, in fact that is often a difficulty in a greenhouse, as the surface of the seed-bed 

 dries up too quickly in the direct sunshine, necessitating watering, which bakes the surface. The] 

 best thing wherein to sow seeds is shallow boxes; these need not be more than two or three inches 

 deep, with open seams at the bottom through which water will drain quickly. Fill the boxes 

 within half an inch of the top with light rich earth; if it can be procured, nothing is better than 

 black leaf -mould from the woods, or light sandy soil mixed with an equal bulk of stable manure, \ 

 so rotted as to resemble leaf-mould, it will not answer unless rotted as fine as dust. In theft 

 absence of either of these, sweepings from a paved street are excellent, mixed with light sandy 

 soil, the object in all cases being lightness of the soil or mould in which the seed is to be sownni 

 for if tiny seeds, as many of our flower-seeds are, are embedded in a stiff soil, the germ in marry J 

 of them is too weak to push its way to the light. When the proper soil has been secured, pat it I 

 down with a smooth board until it is as smooth and level as it well can be, then sow the seed oveia 

 the surface, distributing it evenly; then take a common kitchen sieve and sift just so much earth! 

 evenly over the seed as will cover it, and no more; then take a watering pot with the finest kind! 

 of a rose, and shower the earth with spray. Keep the box at a temperature as near sixty degrees* 

 as possible, taking care to give it a shower of spray only when the surface appears to be dry ; butS 

 few seeds will fail to germinate under such conditions. But after the seeds have " brairded,'' as» 

 the Scotch gardeners say, comes another difficulty ; in quite a number of plants, particularly if 

 sown in the house, just as soon as the seed leaf has developed, and before the first rough or trueB 

 leaves have formed, the seedling is attacked by a minute fungus, that will often sweep off thel 

 whole crop in 48 hours, if not attended to. The required attention is, that as soon as there areB 

 indications of the " damping off'" of these tiny seedlings, they must be carefully taken up and! 

 planted out in similar boxes, prepared exactly as the seed-boxes have been; they may be planted! 

 quite closely, not more than half an inch apart, and let their further treatment be exactly as in 

 germinating the seeds. In the course of a few weeks they will have grown freely, and they may I 

 then be lifted and placed in similar boxes, but wider apart, say three or four inches, or potted ] 

 singly in two and a half or three-inch pots as most convenient, until such a time as they are to be 

 planted out in the open ground, or to be used otherwise. 



