22 
PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY CUTTINGS. 
After being potted, place them in a hotbed frame, and supply them with water 
sufficient to settle the mould, shading- them with a mat till another set of leaves 
beg-in to be developed. 
They will now form embryo buds for the following- season. The plants being 
established, should be gradually exposed to the sun and air, and as soon as the 
leaves have attained their full growth water should be more sparingly applied. 
When the leaves have died down to the bulbs, the plants should be removed into 
a cool vinery or green-house, and if the bulbs feel firm, which may be easily known 
by pressing them with the finger and thumb, the watering may be gradually discon- 
tinued, and the plants be suffered to remain till they begin to show their flower-buds, 
when the surface of the mould must be stirred as before directed, and the same 
treatment pursued. 
The A. curvifolia, A. corusca, A. (^Nerine) Sarniensis^ or Guernsey Lily, require 
the same treatment as the other varieties, and will, if properly managed, flower every 
year. 
There are several varieties of the Amaryllis that do not root so freely as others, 
but if these are allowed to remain in the pots, and be carefully watered and judici- 
ously treated, they will invariably flower in perfection. 
In the management of Amaryllidese, and bulbs in general, it is of great impor- 
tance that they be not overwatered, that the offsets be carefully detached, and that 
in planting the pots be sufficiently drained. 
The following compost may be advantageously employed, both for seedling and 
established plants:— three parts light turfy loam, two parts white sharp sand, and 
one part turfy-peat. 
PROPAGATION OF CERTAIN PLANTS BY CUTTINGS, 
AS RECOMMENDED BY MR. JOHN MACHRAY, OF ERROL^ AND READ BEFORE THE CALEDONIAN 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY, 1826. 
There are many plants that, from their hard texture or peculiar organisation, 
are very difficult to propagate by cuttings ; but there are comparatively few that 
have not been found, under proper management, to produce those appendages which 
are requisite to promote the growth and prolong the existence of the species. 
Nature, indeed, employs other means of propagation, but her handmaid Art has 
proved successful in propagating many useful and ornamental vegetables, the seeds 
of which cannot be easily obtained in a climate where they are not indigenous, by 
layering, by cuttings, and by grafting. The approach which Nature may have made 
to propagate the species by any of these methods is very limited. The process of 
layering is the most obviously natural, next to the universal law of " every tree 
yielding fruit in which is the seed thereof after his kind." The mode of graftings 
by which va7'ieties are propagated, may have first been adopted from the appearance 
