DECORATIVE VARIETIES. 
21 
roots be reduced and smaller pots utilised in their stead, 
they should be plunged in cocoanut-fibre refuse, spent 
hops, sifted ashes, or any equally suitable material. 
During periods of severe frost this plunging of the pots 
is a safe protection against any real harm being done to 
the roots. In circumstances such as these, the frame 
lights should be well matted up, and any available litter 
placed around the frame as a further protection. Old 
stools left in their flowering pots should have the surface 
soil slightly loosened, as this assists very materially in the 
development of subsequent growths. 
Types of Cuttings. — A great deal depends upon the 
choice of the cuttings, as there are both good and bad 
ones. 
A good cutting is a recently developed shoot of free 
and easy growth that pushes its way through the soil a 
short distance removed from the old stem, and detached 
when about three Inches long. Shoots of this kind are 
free from buds at their apex, and when made into cut- 
tings, and inserted in a proper manner, seldom fail to root 
satisfactorily. Plants that produce the sucker-like, under- 
ground shoots, emit quite a large crop of growths from 
which cuttings of the best may be made, and within a 
fortnight of the first batch being detached, there should 
be another supply available from the same source. It is 
quite astonishing what a large supply of stock may be 
obtained from old stools treated in the way advocated in 
an earlier chapter. 
Bad cuttings are those taken off too near the remnant 
of the old stem, and which are often disposed to develop 
buds in the point of the growths, and when this is so, 
their progress, when rooted, leaves much to be desired. 
Those taken from off the old stem are predisposed to 
cause trouble sooner or later, but where the variety is 
new and choice, or very scarce, stem cuttings are inserted, 
as the chances are no others will be available, and the best 
has to be made of them. Such cuttings, however, must 
