78 



October and it is during those months that propagating and plant- 

 ing can be performed most successfully and with least trouble. 



MARCOTTAGE. 



Marcottage is the most commonly practised system of propaga- 

 tion adopted by Chinese and other Asiatics in this Colony for in- 

 creasing and perpetuating choice varieties of fruits and flowers. 

 It is also largely adopted by European planters for obtaining plants 

 of "gutta rambong" (Ficus elastica) the saving in time as compared 

 to raising them from seeds being considerable. The way in which 

 this is generally done is to remove a narrow strip of bark at the 

 point where it is wished to obtain roots and to wrap around the 

 spot a quantity of clay, coco-nut fibre, moss, or some other material 

 that can be kept moist until roots are emitted. There is, however, 

 a variation of this method, and one specially adopted for quickly 

 rooting "rambong", and that is, instead of removing a strip of bark 

 to cut the shoot nearly half through drawing the knife in an 

 upward direction for about an inch or an inch and a-half and to put 

 some damp clay inside and around the cut covering the whole with 

 coco-nut fibre. By this means roots are very quickly produced pro- 

 vided the bandage is never allowed to get dry. Some kinds of 

 plants will root in the course of ten days or a fortnight while 

 others take months. The principal point to be observed is never 

 to let the material that forms the bandage get dry. 



New method of propagating Gutta Percha Trees. 



A new and decidedly clever way of propagating Gutta Percha 

 trees, (Pa^aquium sp.) and which does not exactly come under any 

 of the previously described methods, the credit of which is due to 

 Mr. Burchard, a planter in Sumatra, consists in laying down in 

 a horizontal position young saplings the size of a lead pencil, or a 

 little larger, until they make shoots at right angles to the stem 

 three or four inches in length. The stem is then cut clean through 

 at a distance of about one and a-half inches on either side of the 

 shoot and the cutting inserted in clayey soil and placed in a damp 

 cool place until rooted. Gutta Percha trees are exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to propagate by any means except seeds and these are difficult 

 to get. In fact this is the only practical way I know of and we 

 have tried thousands of cuttings in various ways. Unfortunately 

 its application on a large scale depends on a supply of small sap- 

 lings which are only obtainable in places where formerly there 

 were seed-bearing trees and where the saplings have remained 

 suppressed under the shade of other trees. 



VITALITY OP SEEDS. 



Sir W. T. ThiseltoN-DyeR and Professor DEWAR have shown 

 us that the vitality of protoplasm is not impaired by the almost in- 

 conceivably low temperature of liquid hydrogen. Dr. HENRY DlXON, 

 of Trinity College, Dublin, has recently been experimenting in the 



