DIRECTIONS FOR BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 138 
with a little ventilation at night to refill the frame with cool air, 
until the cuttings are rooted. The closing not only keeps the air 
saturated with moisture and prevents the drying of the cuttings, 
but it also tends to maintain a cool ground temperature within the 
frame. 
The use of a greenhouse in which to start the cuttings, followed 
by the transfer of the cutting boxes to coldframes at the beginning 
of warm weather, permits an even more prolonged protection of the 
cuttings than can be obtained in either greenhouse or coldframes 
alone and increases the percentage of rooted plants. The directions 
for rooting winter cuttings of the blueberry by this method are as 
follows: 
(1) Make the cuttings in late autumn, removing any leaves that have not 
already fallen. 
(2) Make the cuttings from wood of the preceding summer’s growth, rejecting 
such portions as bear the large fat flowering buds. ‘The cuttings are to be made 
from well-matured unbranched twigs or shoots grown in well-lighted situations. 
and therefore weil stored with starch. 
(3) About 4 inches is a suitable length for finished cuttings. A sharp 
thin-bladed knife should be used. In the finished cutting, the upper end of the 
diagonal cut at the base of the cutting should come just below a sound bud, 
and the cut at the upper end of the cutting should be about an eighth of an inch 
above a sound bud. If the cuts are first made with pruning shears, remove with 
the knife the bruised wood at the cut ends. The diagonal knife cuts should be 
as short as is practicable without bruising the bark or splitting or straining 
the wood. To avoid infection of the cuttings, the knife must be kept clean. 
This may be done conveniently by dipping the blade in alcohol and wiping it on 
a clean towel. The cuttings must not be allowed to become dry. This is easily 
prevented by laying them in the fold of a clean moist towel. 
(4) The cutting box (Pl. XIV) should be made of sound clean wood, about 
8 inches deep inside and of any convenient size, with drainage holes in the 
bottom. The cutting bed should be laid down over a groundwork of clean 
broken crocks, gravel, or other material that will provide good drainage. On 
this place about 3% inches of rather coarse basswood sawdust mixed with about 
one-fourth its bulk of peat, the whole bed, including the drainage material, 
being 4 inches or a little more in thickness. Wet the bed thoroughly with clean 
rain water or other pure water (free from lime) from a sprinkling pot. 
(5) With a newly whittled stick or other clean implement punch holes about 
8 inches deep in the cutting bed at a spacing of 2 to 3 inches each way, according 
to the thickness of the cuttings. In setting the cutting in the hole be sure to 
press it down far enough and firmly enough to make sure that the cut surface 
at the base is in contact with the sawdust, but be careful not to injure the 
delicate new tissue at the base of the cutting by pushing it forcibly into the 
cutting bed. With the stick tamp the sawdust firmly about the cutting. Cover 
the box with a pane or panes of glass. 
(6) To prevent injury of the cuttings by overheating, allow little or no direct 
sunlight on the boxes. Shade them with muslin or paper or slats so hung as to 
permit ample circulation of cool air between the shade and the glass. 
(7) Keep the air inside the box saturated or nearly saturated with moisture. 
This condition will be shown by the condensation of the moisture on the under 
side of the glass at night or at other cool portions of the day. 
