204 
PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 
dispensing with every external application except the usual ligature of garden 
matting. About the month of March, or whatever time may be nearest the 
ordinary development of the species to be united, the young year-old stocks 
are taken into the propagation house, cut down to within four or six inches of the 
soil, and the grafts at once affixed either to their apex or side, as may be most 
convenient, binding the matting rather tightly around them, and taking care 
tliat it covers the whole of the wounded parts. 
After the plants are thus grafted, the pots containing the stocks are either 
phmged in, or placed flatly upon, a bark bed in which the fermentation is progress- 
ing very moderately, and a set of specimens, varying in number according to their 
size and that of the covering to be used, is to be surrounded by a hand-glass ; over 
which again, or above the roof of the house, any slight shading can be extended 
during the day. In a few weeks, if the period be aptly chosen, and the junction 
skilfully effected, the young scion will be seen rapidly enlarging itself and develop- 
ing its foliage, when the shading may be partially taken away, the temperature 
reduced, and the atmosphere of the house admitted. 
For propagational purposes, we have latterly met with an improved kind of 
hand-glass at Messrs. Eollison's, Tooting, which, with the strength, durability, and 
lightness of iron, unites a degree of cheapness which cannot be realized with that 
material. The frame of it is composed of zinc. It is made by Messrs. North and 
Wise, 159, Blackfriars Road, and the cost of one of ordinary dimensions is, vv^e are 
informed, about seven or eight shillings. But it has two or three peculiar features 
which augment its value. The first of these is two little doors, fixed on either side 
of the handle on the top, which, by being constructed so as to remain open or 
closed, can strictly retain any required volume or kind of air in the interior, or 
evacuate whatever uncongenial gases or vapours may be enclosed. Another 
particular is, that the glass of the sloping surface, and that of the upright sides, laps 
over a piece of zinc for about half an inch, and has a small gutter immediately 
below it ; so that the condensed vapour which settles on the inside of the glass, 
and which necessarily runs to the points in question, is thus carried to the outside, 
and there escapes. The last circumstance is of great moment with very delicate 
plants. 
We have said that grafting is frequently now practised without the aid of clay, 
wax, or any similar substance. Let us be understood to mean that these can be 
spared when a proper atmosphere is preserved around the plants by artificial 
means ; and that the specimens so propagated must have wax to protect them 
when subjected to the vicissitudes of a natural climate. Roses, for example, which 
are multiplied very extensively by grafting in the Epsom nursery, — some in the 
open air and others in the stove,— will not succeed without wax if they are exposed. 
The plan is exceedingly judicious with those sorts that are rare, and produce 
scarcely any or no shoots capable of being layered ; because the smallest prunings 
may be employed, and stocks of comparatively valueless varieties can so easily be 
