346 



HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 



which a bud is inserted ; but if the shoot is not 

 stopped, the rising sap will be attracted into the 

 youngest leaves, and expended in their increase; 

 while, on the other hand, if the shoot is stopped, 

 the sap will be forced laterally into the buds 

 already forming on its sides, and the new bud 

 will participate in this advantage. It is there- 

 fore, upon the whole, advantageous to cut off a 

 part of each shoot into which a bud is intro- 

 duced. The removal of a quarter of it is enough 

 to answer the intended purpose. As it is im- 

 portant in every way that the vigour of the 

 budded branch should be preserved for the buds 

 which are forming, all flowers or fruit should 

 be cut off it, and from the twigs in its vicinity, 

 otherwise these parts will consume the organis- 

 able matter which should be applied to the ser- 

 vice of the new buds." 



§ 5. — PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 



The accidental sticking into the ground of a 

 willow twig, or other equally ready- rooting plant, 

 may have taught man the art of increasing by 

 cuttings. Propagation by cuttings, like grafting, 

 by no means constitutes a new plant, but only 

 an extension of the parent from which it was 

 taken, differing in no respect in habit, nature, or 

 property, from it. Many plants originated from 

 cuttings, such as the poplar, vine, elder, willow, 

 &c, attain as large a size and as great an age as 

 if originated from seed ; and the first and last of 

 these are almost invariably propagated by this 

 means, and that often when the cutting or 

 truncheon is of large size and considerable age. 

 The oak and beech amongst trees are, however, 

 exceptions to this rule, and it was long thought 

 that coniferous trees were incapable of this mode 

 of increase. Subsequent experience has, how- 

 ever, proved this opinion to be incorrect, for 

 with the exception of Araucaria excelsa, Pinus 

 nobilis, and a few others, our expert nursery 

 propagators increase this popular family with 

 seemingly little difficulty ; and there is no doubt 

 but that plants of this order so multiplied will 

 make more healthy and more durable trees than 

 those propagated otherwise than by seeds. In- 

 stances have occasionally occurred of some coni- 

 ferous trees propagating themselves somewhat 

 in the way of layers or cuttings, as where their 

 lower branches have come into contact with the 

 ground, and been partially by accident covered 

 with soil, they have rooted, and their points 

 taken an upright direction, and when afterwards 

 separated from the parent, have become toler- 

 able trees. These instances are of rare occur- 

 rence, but they no doubt first led the observing 

 cultivator to adopt, artificially, a more certain 

 process than was thus pointed out to him by 

 nature. 



That portion of a plant or tree selected for a 

 cutting must of necessity contain buds or eyes 

 on its surface to secure its growth, and hence 

 that portion of the stem or branches called the 

 irternode— that is, the spaces which intervene 

 between leaf and leaf, or bud and bud, as exem- 

 plified in the vine, fig. 121, and which have no 

 buds, as from a to a — is of all parts the most 



Fig. 121. 



CUTTING OF 

 VINE. 



improper for the purpose. The vine, and some 

 other plants, when subjected to a humid atmo- 

 sphere, throw out roots even into 

 the air, but these are always 

 found to proceed from the buds, 

 6 b. "Hence it has been inferred," 

 Dr Lindley observes, " that the 

 roots of a plant are as much 

 productions of buds as branches 

 are, and that the stem is nothing 

 more than a collection of such 

 roots held together, under the 

 form of wood and bark." This 

 is the reason why cuttings 

 should be cut close below a leaf 

 bud; if cut above it on the inter- 

 node, roots could not be produced. 

 This opinion seems confirmed by 

 the circumstance of the old trunks 

 and larger branches of pear-trees, 

 when blown down, often striking 

 roots at those parts where they 

 come in contact with the ground, 

 as instanced in the celebrated old 

 pear-tree at Holme Lacy, in Here- 

 fordshire, and in the case of many 

 others of far less note. Upon care- 

 fully examining such trees, it will 

 be found that the roots have ema- 

 nated from latent buds which, had 

 they not come in contact with 

 the soil, would for ever have re- 

 mained dormant. And in the very 

 same way, roots were produced 

 from the under side of the ancient mulberry- 

 tree described by Dr Neill, in " Horticultural 

 Tour," p. 13, as then existing in a garden at 

 Canterbury, and which had been prostrated 

 above a century. Another well-authenticated 

 fact is recorded by Mr Livingstone in the fourth 

 volume of" The Horticultural Society's Transac- 

 tions," in the case of the Petrocarpus marsupium, 

 one of the largest trees of the East Indies, which, 

 is " readily propagated by cuttings of all sizes, 

 if planted even after the pieces have been cut for 

 many months, notwithstanding they appear quite 

 dry, and fit only for the fire. I have witnessed," 

 says Mr Livingstone, " some three, four, five, 

 six, or seven inches in diameter, and ten or 

 twelve feet long, come to be fine trees in a few 

 years. While watching the transformation of 

 the log into the tree, I have been able to trace 

 the progress of the radicles from the buds, which 

 began to shoot from the upper part of the stump 

 a few days after it had been placed in the ground, 

 and marked their progress till they reached 

 the earth. By elevating the bark, minute fibres 

 are seen to descend contemporaneously as the 

 bud shoots into a branch." And even chips of 

 such trees as the poplar, having a portion of the 

 bark remaining on them when buried in the 

 ground, have been known to produce roots, and 

 ultimately to become trees — a circumstance 

 noticed by some of our oldest horticultural 

 writers. Of fruit-bearing hardy trees, the vine, 

 fig, mulberry, gooseberry, and currant are for 

 the most part propagated by cuttings. Almost 

 every variety of apple may be propagated by 

 cuttings ; the pear less readily ; and all other 



