precautions must he taken to prevent the drying out of the soil by 
evaporation from the sides of the pots. This may he done by placing 
the pots in moistened moss, sawdust, or sand from which any salt 
which may have been present has been washed. The seeds should 
be placed horizontally about one-half inch beneath the surface of 
the soil, and the young seedlings should be partially shaded. 
LAYERING. 
As seeds do not reproduce the variety from which they have been 
taken, and as the seedlings are of rather slow growth and require 
many years to come into bearing, it has for many years been the 
custom in China, the land of the litchi, to propagate the best varieties 
by layering or by air-layering, a process which has come to be known 
as "Chinese layering" and is applied to many kinds of plants. In 
air-layering, a branch is surrounded with soil until roots have formed, 
after which it is removed and established as a new tree. In applying 
the method to the litchi, a branch from three-fourths inch to 1J 
inches in diameter is wounded by the complete removal of a ring 
of bark just below a bud, where it is desired to have the roots start. 
The cut usually is surrounded by soil held in place by a heavy wrap- 
ping of burlap or similar material, although sometimes a box is 
elevated into the tree for this purpose. Several ingenious devices 
have been made to supply the soil with constant moisture. Some- 
times a can with a very small opening in the bottom is suspended 
above the soil and filled with water which passes out drop by drop 
into the soil. Again, sometimes the water is conducted, from a can 
or other vessel placed above the soil, by means of a loosely woven 
rope, one end of which is placed in the water the other on the soil, 
the water passing over by capillarity. 
Air-layering usually is commenced at about the beginning of the 
season of most active growth, and several months are required for 
the establishment of a root system sufficient to support an independent 
jtree. When a good ball of roots has fonried, the branch is cut off 
below the soil, or the box, after which it generally is placed in a larger 
box or tub to become more firmly established before being set out 
permanently. At first it is well to provide some shade and protection 
from the wind, and often it is necessary to cut back the top of the 
branch severely, so as to secure a proper proportion of stem to root. 
Some modifications of this old-world method have been practiced 
with success at this station. One of these consists in using a long 
trough-shaped box, in which several branches may be rooted at the 
same time, thus increasing the number of plants which may be propa- 
gated with a given amount of labor and attention. For this purpose, 
rather small branches not more than a half-inch in diameter are laid 
across the trough through notches cut in the sides of the box. With 
8556.5—17 2 
