FLORICULTURAL NOTICES. 
93 
PECULIARITIES IN THE CULTURE OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 
On grafting rhododendrons, camellias, and other exotic shrubs. — The 
propagation of plants, altlioiigli pre-eminently the province of professional nursery- 
men, and chiefly conducted in their establishments, is a practice in which all culti- 
vators are more or less interested, and of the speediest and most efficacious means 
for effecting which, it is highly desirable that all should be informed. Many 
processes are devised, and quietly pursued in nurseries, of which the majority of 
amateur cultivators remain ignorant for a very considerable period ; and equity 
demands that those with whom they originate should alone reap the fruit of their 
skill, at least for a season. When, however, they are known and adopted by other 
nurserymen, they become public property, and should be rendered generally useful 
through the medium of floricultural publications. 
In accordance with this apprehension, we intend laying before our readers some 
information concerning the grafting of exotic shrubs ; a method of propagation 
which is now most extensively employed in a few of the metropolitan nurseries. 
For increasing many of those plants which were previously multiplied by inarching, 
by layers, or even by cuttings, the method in question is, to a great extent, now 
substituted. Its advantages over propagation by layers or cuttings will be readily 
perceived, because specimens may be obtained in a few months, to obtain which 
would require as many years by either of those modes. To inarching, it evidently 
assimilates more nearly, and the only reasons why it should be preferred are, that 
far less room is necessary, and, consequently, less heat and attention ; and that, 
moreover, the plants from which the young scions are procured, are not subjected 
to the stimulating and weakening circumstances attending that process. It wall 
be admitted that the attainment of these objects is of great importance; but the 
system under discussion presents other advantages to which we shall hereafter advert. 
Grafting has, till within the last few years, been almost wholly confined to 
hardy trees ; and even of these, with the more tender and valuable kinds, inarching 
has invariably been preferred. It seems not censorious to say that we have been 
heretofore lacking in a knowledge or appreciation of convenience, economy, and 
efficiency in the propagation of plants ; for all these consequences are certainly 
entailed by this system in a greater degree than by any other. 
It is more convenient. By inarching (with which alone grafting can be com- 
pared) the plant to be increased has to be surrounded with the stocks on which 
the operation is to be effected, thereby occupying a considerable space ; these 
having likewise to be elevated to a certain height, and the specimen plant distorted 
and bent in various directions, so as to bring it in contact with the stock. Perhaps, 
also, the elasticity of the latter will derange the operation ; and, however trifling 
this disturbance may be, the process will inevitably be nullified. Shading or 
