30 



SCIENCE OF GAEDE^^I^'C;. 



gooseberries, currants. plum>, lilacs, aud roses, but are 

 found occasionally with most shrubby plauts or trees. The 

 suckers of gooseberries, currant?, and fruit trees, should 

 always be eradicated and thrown away, as they will never 

 produce good fruit ; those of lilacs, and other flowering 

 shrubs and trees, may be removed in the autumn, and 

 planted in any required situation, provided care is taken 

 to lift them with sufficient roots, and, if possible^ with root- 

 fibres and their tips attached to them ; but even these 

 are inferior to the plants produced from layers, as they 

 will not come into flower for a great length of time, while 

 layers usually bloom much sooner. 



Roses, especially the common sorts, produce excellent 

 suckers, w^hich answer well for stocks, to bud the choicest 

 sorts upon. The suckers from the better kind of roses, 

 will flower best if converted into layers. 



In the monthly rose, suckers ma.ke the best plants, as 

 they do also in the sweetbriar ; but this does not produce 

 many. Such suckers, when long and epusily bent, may 

 also be treated as layers ; and as many new plants may 

 be obtained as there are buds on the sucker, by making a 

 ring cut through the bark below each bud, and laying 

 over the whole sucker, when pegged down, a shallovr 

 covering of rather dry earth, when a stem will rise from 

 each bud, and roots grow from each ring of bark that has 

 been cut — a good mode of multiplying rose trees. 



7. — Propagating ly Slq^s or Cuttings. 



The method of propagating plants by layers being 

 troublesome and protracted, has led to the introduction 

 of a much more simple and speedy process, and one by 

 which a much greater number of plauts may be obtained. 



The younger twigs or branches of many plants and 

 shrubs, and even the trimks of some trees, such as the 

 willow and elder, if planted in the ground, and properly 

 treated, will not only continue to live, and retain their 

 vital principle almost as well as a layer attached to the 

 parent plant, but will speedily prodtice roots from their 

 lower extremities, and these will extend themselves into 

 the soil; supply the stem with nourishment, to enable it 



