416 
FAMILIAR LESSONS ON PRACTICAL GARDENING. 
they have dried a little, the more delicate kinds 
are best covered with a hand-glass, which re- 
quires to be slightly lifted up occasionally, for 
an hour or so at a time, to allow the collected 
moisture to pass away, in order that they may 
not damp off. Free rooting plants require no 
hand-glass, but merely to be planted in a shel- 
tered shady place. Leafless cuttings of shrubs 
— gooseberries, for instance, as they are in 
winter — may be planted in common soil, in 
any shady place, by chopping out an opening 
with the spade, placing the cuttings in it at 
the proper depth, and then returning and 
treading the soil firmly about and against 
them ; the three buds retained on the cuttings 
should only be left above ground. Cuttings 
should, in all cases, be kept moderately damp, 
and are greatly refreshed by occasional light 
sprinklings over head, if they are leafy cut- 
tings. The sketches will illustrate the mode 
of preparing different kinds of cuttings : the 
horizontal line indicates the surface level of 
soil after planting ; the scars on the cuttings 
beneath these lines, the positions from which 
leaves or buds, or both, have been removed in 
the preparation of the respective cuttings. 
Layering. — This operation consists in fixing 
a portion of the branch of a plant beneath the 
soil, with a view to the production of roots 
from that part so buried, while the entire 
branch remains as yet attached to the parent 
stem. It is generally practised on plants that 
do not grow very freely from cuttings, or else 
to obtain larger plants in a given space of 
time than could be raised by planting detached 
morsels as cuttings. If large and not very 
pliant, the branches are first secured to the 
ground by a strong hook-peg, and the several 
smaller branches are fixed each by a smaller 
hook-peg, or sometimes, where there is little 
resistance, by laying a stone across 
them. The twig to be layered is cleared 
of leaves in the lower part, and at that 
point which is to be fixed under ground 
(at a joint, that is, where a leaf had 
grown), a slit is made with a sharp knife ; the 
slit is commenced a little below the joint, and 
continued upwards towards the point of the 
twig, through the joint, and from half-an-inch 
to an inch or more beyond it ; the end of the 
slit portion is then cut off evenly, close beneath 
the joint. The ground being slightly lowered, 
the twig is bent down, and fastened by a hook 
placed a little distance behind the cut ; the 
point of the twig is brought upright, or nearly 
so, which opens the cut, and the cut part is 
covered with an inch or two (or more, if a 
large subject) of soil, pressed down firmly. 
The leaves on the twig above the cut and 
buried part should not be shortened, or at all 
cut or broken ; but sometimes, if it is a long, 
rambling shoot, the top may be altogether cut 
off, leaving three or four good eyes above 
ground, as in the case of cuttings. Layers 
root the more readily if the soil into which they 
are laid is sandy, and for all choice subjects it 
should be thus prepared. Various periods are 
taken by different plants to form roots under 
these circumstances. The carnation, for in- 
stance, when layered, will be well rooted in a 
few weeks; many shrubs layered in the midst 
of their growth, will be fit to transplant in the 
spring following ; others require a full year 
and upward, and some even two years. 
In the accompanying diagram, a is a twig 
prepared for layering ; b is another twig, simi- 
larly prepared and fixed in the soil, the sur- 
face of which is indicated by the horizontal 
line. The roots would be chiefly produced 
from the cut or tongued part, c. When the 
layer comes to be transplanted, the soil should 
be opened, the peg withdrawn, and the branch 
cut asunder carefully, near that part where 
the peg had been placed, and the layer, then 
an independent plant, lifted carefully with its 
roots, and transplanted where required. The 
mode of preparing a layer is shown on a larger 
scale, in the annexed figure, in which a indi- 
