16 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



may generally, however, be considered a rule to begin early 

 in the year, that the cuttings may be rooted, and fit to pot off by 

 April or May, by which means they will be fully established 

 in the pots to stand the hot suns of June, July, and August, 

 during which three months they will make rapid progress, and 

 will, by the end of October, be, if properly treated, handsome 

 plants. 



In regard to the season of commencing propagating tro- 

 pical plants, by our own practice it is to begin in February, 

 and even in some cases in January, and finish by the end of 

 March ; and for this purpose we use a close pit, and often a 

 garden or cucumber frame, wherein a brisk heat is constantly 

 and uniformly kept up from the time the cutting-pots are 

 plunged in it till the whole have rooted, and are fit to pot off. 

 After which they are removed to a nursing-pit, and kept grow- 

 ing by being kept moist, and never below 70 degrees of heat, 

 if possible. 



The Author of the Botanical Cultivator gives the following 

 as his practice, which has been very extensive as a commer- 

 cial grower : — " For the propagating of stove-plants a small 

 house should be appropriated; a north-eastern aspect is 

 preferable to any other, so as to have the morning sun, and 

 none afterwards : they then want no artificial shading ; for the 

 less sun cuttings have before they are rooted, and the more 

 light, the better. A pit might be made in the house, and one 

 part of it filled with fresh tan, another part with rotten tan, 

 and a third part with mould. In the fresh tan might be 

 plunged, under hand-glasses or bell-glasses, any cuttings of 

 plants requiring heat: in the rotten tan, under bell-glasses, 

 any kinds not requiring heat ; and in the mould, under hand- 

 glasses, large cuttings of green-house plants," as we have 

 already noticed, " which require no heat. Cuttings, parti- 

 cularly of hard woody plants, root best in fine sand, and are 

 safer to pot oflf after being rooted, as the sand shakes clean 

 from their roots without injuring them. When planted in 

 mould, the roots are apt to break off in parting them : but 

 some of the herbaceous or soft-wooded kinds will not root 

 well in sand, and must therefore be planted in mould. Cut- 

 tings must be put in when the wood is fit Some kinds root 



