302 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
may be bad in larger masses, forming more striking objects, -where it 
can be planted out in the border of the stove and trained to the 
rafters, where it will bloom profusely for months in succession. It 
is, however, well known to be one of the very best of stove climbers. 
STRIKING CUTTINGS. 
'HAT is required when cuttingaof plants are to be struck, 
is a due adjustment of heat, light, and moisture. The 
first stimulates the vital process ; the second causes the 
formation of matter out of which roots and leaves are to 
be organized ; the third is at once a vehicle for the 
food required by the cutting, and a part of it. The great difficulty 
is to know how to adjust these agents. If the heat is too high, 
organs are formed faster than they can be solidified. If too low, 
decay comes on before the reproductive forces can be put in action. 
When light is too powerful, the fluid contents of the cutting are 
lost faster than they can be supplied ; when too feeble, there is not 
a sufficiently quick formation of organizable matter to construct, the 
new roots and leaves with. If water is deficient, the cutting is 
starved; if over-abundant it rots. It is, then, the adjustment of 
these varying forces to the peculiar nature of the cutting to be 
acted upon, that constitutes the art of propagation. It is this 
which theory cannot supply, but which depends upon skill and 
experience. If any part of the operations of cultivation can be 
called empirical, it is this. And yet the operator is not without 
rules to guide him in this adjustment. The misfortune is, that 
they are too general. 
The softer a cutting, the quicker must be the excitement and 
application of the formative process ; the more light, the greater the 
quantity of water. The more hard and woody a cutting, the slower 
will be the operation, the more feeble the light, the greater the 
quantity of water. If the<e conditions of new growth can but be 
preserved, all cuttings of all plauts maybe converted into new indi- 
viduals. The great enemies of the propagator, sa^s Mr. Neumann, 
are rotting and drying. For this reason cuttings are preserved in 
the midst of a temperature and humidity always equal, the evapora- 
tion of the soil is hindered, and the perspiration of the cuttings is 
prevented. Heat, light, and moisture being thus shown to be the 
agents to whose assistance we must look for success, and by tvhose 
mismanagement the hopes of the gardener are ruined, it is of the first 
importance to determine how each can be best and most efficiently- 
controlled. 
And first of heat. We know that plants are distributed over 
all parts of the habitable globe ; that in neighbouring countries the 
species are nearly alike; that distant countries are clothed with 
vegetation of entirely different kinds ; and that the distinction in 
the vegetation is in proportion to the distance of the countries from 
each other. There is not, perhaps, a dozen speeies in Normandy 
