263 



SMALL FETJIT CULTUKIST. 



nursery rows, placing the plants a foot apart in the row 

 and the rows four feet apart. They will usually bloom the 

 third year from seed, at which time every plant should be 

 examined, and a label attached to each with the word 

 staminate or pistillate, as the case may be, written upon 

 each; common wooden labels, such as used by nurserymen, 

 freshly painted at the time, will remain legible for two or 

 three years. If it is more convenient to* have the plants 

 separated than to keep each one labeled, then they may be 

 taken up after the sexes are determined, and each kind 

 placed in a row by itself. 



The Shepherdias produce very few suckers, but when 

 any appear, they may be taken off and planted separately. 

 Layers root very readily, and plants may be produced in 

 this manner quite rapidly. 



It is quite probable that ripe wood cuttings will grow 

 the same as the Currant, but I have never had occasion to 

 try this mode of propagation, because they grow so readily 

 from seed that I have practiced this method in preference 

 to others. Besides, there is always a chance, when grow- 

 ing any kind of fruit from seed, of producing something 

 better than the original, consequently, the very uncertainty 

 becomes fascinating to the true lover of horticulture, and 

 the hope of the thing lightens the otherwise irksomeness 

 of the task. 



There is another species of Shepherdia found in the 

 Northern States, the fruit of which is very insipid. I 

 copy the description from Gray's Manual of Botany : 



Shepherdia Canadensis, — Canadian Shepherdia. — 

 "Leaves elliptical ov ovate, nearly naked and green 

 above, silvery-downy, and scurfy with rusty scales under- 

 neath ; fruit yellowish-red ; rocky or gravelly banks ; Yer- 

 mont to Wisconsin, and northward. A straggling shrub, 

 three to six feet high ; the branchlets, young leaves, yel- 

 lowish flowers etc., covered with the rusty scales. Fruit 

 insipid." 



