Ill 
CULTURE OF THE LOQUAT. 
(eriobotrya japonica.) 
This plant is deserving- of the most extensive culture in the stove both as a 
plant of ornament and utility. The flowers are produced in terminal bunches in 
January, when few plants make any show, and the fruit ripen and are fit for table 
in April The most successful mode of culture may be stated as follows : — 
1. Propagation. This plant is propagated by cuttings, layers, abscission, seeds, 
and grafting. To propagate by cuttings, take off the young ripe wood in June, 
make each cutting about two inches long, cut off always at a joint, and remove no 
more leaves than are necessary for inserting the cuttings in a pot, as they will grow 
with more freedom the more leaves they possess. 
When the cuttings are prepared, plant them in a pot of fine sand, let the pot 
be well drained with potsherds, give a gentle watering to settle the sand about the 
cuttings, then put on a bell-glass, and plunge the pots up to the rim in a brisk 
hotbed or bark pit, and they will soon strike root : after which pot them off in 
sixty-sized pots, and again plunge them in a hotbed till they have begun to grow 
again, then remove them to the stove and treat them as old plants. 
2. Layers. This operation should be performed when the plants are started to 
grow in October ; make an incision with a sharp penknife on the upper side of the 
young branch, and give it a slight twist, that the tongue of the layer may lodge 
upon the soil ; peg it down, and cover it with well rotted leaf mould. 
If convenient, it is always advisable to propagate by layers in a pot, as recom- 
• mended for oranges in Vol. I. page 91, because, when struck, the young plant may 
be separated in full fruit, and sent in that state to the table. 
3. Abscission. This is the mode of propagating by taking off a ring of bark 
about an inch broad from a branch, and either fixing a pot of soil about it, or tying 
it about with moss ; in both ways, if kept moist, roots will soon be produced, when 
the plants may be separated and potted. The best time to do this is in the end of 
September or beginning of October, just before the plants are brought into force. 
4. Seeds. Allow the fruit, intended to be saved for seed, to hang on the plant 
till it rots, then gather it, separate the seeds, and sow them immediately in a pot of 
fine sifted leaf-mould ; plunge the pot in a hotbed or other brisk heat up to the 
rim, cover the soil with moss to prevent the surface drying, as nothing is more 
injurious to these seeds than alternate drying and watering ; and in ten days or a 
fortnight the young plants will make their appearance. 
When the young plants are an inch high, transplant them into thimble pots, a 
single plant in each pot, filled, for the most part, with leaf-mould and a little heath- 
mould broken very fine. When potted, plunge the pots again in a hotbed until 
they have grown sufficiently for repotting, then place them in sixty-sized pots, 
remove them to the stove and treat them as old plants. 
5. Grafting. This is undoubtedly the best way of propagation for producing 
fruit, provided the stocks be good ; next to this, layers, then abscission, and 
