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XXIII. On the Propagation of the Balsam (Impatient Balsamina) 

 by Cuttings. By Mr. G. John Towers, C. M. H. S. 



Read October 18, 1831. 



At a period when science is spreading with such rapid strides, as 

 to render it extremely difficult for the most attentive observer to 

 keep in view the progress of its extension, it will scarcely be pru- 

 dent for any man of modest pretensions, to claim the merit of having 

 made a discovery. The subject of this Paper is new indeed to the 

 writer, though, in all probability, the practice to be detailed, is 

 familiar to numbers of scientific Horticulturists. Still, however, it 

 is certain that, neither in the course of reading nor in that of con- 

 versation, has he received a hint which would lead him to judge 

 that the experiment about to be mentioned, has been undertaken 

 by any one before him : the claim of novelty, may therefore in one 

 point of view, be admitted. 



To lay aside the third person, I shall shortly observe that, early 

 last April, I received from a friend a small packet of very fine Balsam 

 seeds that had ripened at Madras, and were sent over in 1830, by 

 his son. I sowed a portion of these seeds in rich earth, and placed 

 the pot in a brick glazed pit that was heated by a deep bed of tree 

 leaves. The seeds germinated, the plants grew rapidly, and were 

 moved into larger pots, and kept under glass till they attained a 

 very considerable size ; but scarcely any of them exhibited, through- 

 out the summer, the slightest appearance of producing flowers. 



Finding this to be the case, I took a small cutting at the extre- 

 mity of one of the upper lateral shoots, about three inches long, 

 and not so thick as a goose-quill. I cut it off just below a leaf, 



▼OL. I. 2ND SEE1ES. X 



