165 
A few side tubers can easily be spared from an established plant 
for this purpose; but for the nurseryman, or where a great 
number of plants are wanted, the following is the best and 
shortest way to go to work. At any time during the growing 
season, take as many cuttings as you want of plants, of Iporaoea 
insignis, or of the species of Ipomoea which Mr. Low of Clap- 
ton introduced from the higher parts of Brazil, which is much 
hardier than the Ipomoea insignis, and in all respects a better 
stock for Ipomoea Horsfalliae than Ipomoea insignis. They will 
strike roots in a fortnight ; and in a short time they will form 
young tubers, like those of young dahlias ; then shake them out 
of the pot, and graft them as above. Or any practised person 
may take the young points, of the current season’s growth, and 
insert them in the bottom of the cutting, instead of in the tuber, 
and they will take just as well ; but when this plan is adopted 
the cuttings ought to be divested of their bottom eyes when first 
put in, otherwise these eyes will be found troulilesome in pushing 
up and contending with the graft. 
171 Apple Trees, pruning. The late T. A. Knight, in his 
excellent Treatise on the Apple and Pear, animadverting on the 
unscientific mode of pruning practised by farmers, says “ The 
apple tree, being naturally very full of branches, frequently 
requires the operation of pruning ; and when properly executed, 
great advantages will be found to arise from it. But, as it is 
generally performed in Herefordshire, the injury the tree sustains 
is much greater than the benefit it receives. The ignorant primer 
gets into the middle of it, and lays about him to right and left, till 
lie leaves only small tufts of branches at the extremities of the 
large boughs. These branches, now receiving the whole nour- 
ishment of the tree, of course increase rapidly, and soon become, 
when loaded with fruit or snow, too heavy for the long naked 
boughs to support, which arc of necessity full of dead knots 
from the former labours of the primer. Many hundred trees 
annually perish from this cause. The present system of prun- 
ing ought to be precisely reversed ; and the primer should 
confine himself almost entirely to the extremities of the bearing 
branches, which are always too full of wood, and leave the in- 
ternal part of the tree nearly as he finds it. 
In pruning the apple tree, and all other standard trees, the 
points of the external branches should be every where rendered 
1S3 lOCTAKItJM. 
