FEB.] 



THE GARDENER. 



97 



with a small crystal bell glass, or a small hand lights 

 closely glazed, either of these may be used ; but if 

 provided with neither (which is nothing uncommon), 

 you can doubtless command as much glass in square 

 or fragment, as will cover the mouth of a 48-sized pot, 



" The cuttings should be taken from the extremities 

 of the healthiest vines, cut close below the third joint 

 from the tip, and inserted in thumb-pots filled with 

 leaf-soil and loam mixed, about half an inch below the 

 surface of the soil ; and these placed in the bottom of 

 a 48-sized pot, and the cavity between the two pots 

 stuffed with moist moss, and the glass laid over the 

 top of the outer pot, which ought to be plunged in a 

 hotbed to the brim. 



*'This is an improvement in striking cuttings which 

 I have never made known before, nor have I ever seen 

 it practised by any one else. It is a common way to 

 fill a pot three-fourths full of soil, and in that to in- 

 sert the cuttings under a pane of glass ; and I have no 

 doubt, when those that have practised that mode come 

 to see this simple improvement, so much more woi-k. 

 manlike and applicable, not only to melon cuttings but 

 to all sorts of cuttings — exotic, greenhouse, and hardy, 

 they will feel nowise reluctant to relinquish the old 

 way. 



" The advantages of this mode are, when the cuttings 

 get up to the glass, which they generally do before 

 they have struck root, the outer pot can be changed 

 for one a little deeper, and the moist moss server the 

 twofold purpose of conducting heat and moisture ; and 

 as the heat of the tan or dung-pit will be 30° or 40** 

 above that of the atmosphere of the house or pit (a 

 good tan-bed will range about 110° at six inches deep), 

 it will be communicated through the outer pot to the 

 atmosphere around the cuttings, thereby accelerating 

 their striking root. This high atmospheric heat is an 



