1042 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



[Mar, 



buried in the mould is slightly notched, split, twisted, or 

 otherwise mutilated, and sometimes it is put under the mould 

 without any catting whatever. " If the cut or notch," says 

 an author on this subject, " in the stem does not penetrate at 

 least half way through, some sorts of plants will not form a 

 nucleus the first season ; on the other hand, if the notch be 

 cut nearly through the shoot, a sufficiency of alburnum or soft 

 wood is not left for the ascent of the sap, and the shoot dies. 

 In delicate sorts it is not sufficient to cut a notch merely, be- 

 cause, in that case, the descending sap, instead of sending out 

 granulated matter in the upper side of the wound, would de- 

 scend by the entire side of the shoot; therefore, besides a 

 notch formed by cutting out a portion of bark and wood, the 

 notched side is slit up at least one inch, separating it by a 

 bit of twig, a small splinter of stone or potsherd." Plants 

 originated by layers, are not afterwards so likely to produce 

 fine specimens as those originated by the other modes of pro- 

 pagation ; but there are some which we are necessitated to 

 produce in this way, because they are more difficult to pro- 

 pagate by any other. 



PROPAGATING BY BUDDING, GRAFTING, AND INARCHING. 



Many plants are propagated by one or other of these means ; 

 but as they have been already described in the Fruit Garde?i, 

 any notice of them here may be deemed superfluous. We 

 cannot, however, omit noticing a very ingenious mode of 

 grafting, described by M. Oscar Leclerc, of the Jardin du Roi, 

 Paris, in a communication to the editor of the Gardener's 

 Magazine, and said to be the invention of Mr. Blaike, an 

 eminent British gardener, who long resided in France, and 

 who may be considered as the founder of modern gardening in 

 that country : " This mode of grafting," observes M. Leclerc, 



which I shall henceforth call the Graffe Blaikie, succeeds 

 in most plants, both of the hot-house and open air ; and it 

 seems particularly well calculated for the propagation of in- 

 tertropical plants and trees. The success which attends it on 

 delicate hot-house plants, and particularly on those which are 

 hard-wooded, is very difficult to be obtained by any other 



