AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
49 
will be, except in size, like the original lump 
from which it came. When a vegetable sub¬ 
stance is thus examined, the case is.different: 
wo find it to be made up of parts , and if the 
division is carried beyond a certain point, we 
get fragments which do not represent the whole. 
To see these parts of which the plant is made 
up, in their simplest form, we may take for illus¬ 
tration tiie early sprout from a seed, cut a very 
thin slice crosswise, and .examine it with a mi¬ 
croscope. It will appear as in figure 1—a: 
network of six-sided meshes. In this case we 
have a cross section filled with holes. Now t 
do these show the mouths of numerous tubes 
or veins, or 
what are they ? 
The answer to 
this must be 
found by taking 
a thin slice in 
_^J the opposite di¬ 
rection, length¬ 
wise of the 
shoot. Put this 
under the mi¬ 
croscope and 
■what do we see ? 
Pretty much the 
same thing, except that the little six-sided mesh¬ 
es are somewhat longer in the direction of 
the length of the part (fig. 2), and we come to 
the conclusion that the portion of the vegetable 
under examination is filled with ebsed cavities , 
HORIZONTAL SECTION. 
for the strongest magnifier fails to show any 
communication between one of these six-sided 
meshes and another. The question will proba¬ 
bly occur, are these cavities openings in the 
mass of the plant, like those in a well-made loaf 
of bread, or is their na- ■ 
ture different ? By a little 
careful boiling or soak¬ 
ing in weak acid, w T e are 
able to answer the ques¬ 
tion and show what is 
their real nature. With 
proper management the 
mass in question may be 
made to separate into 
little roundish bladders 
or bags, each complete 
in itself. These bodies, represented in fig. 3, are 
called cells , and of these cells , in some one of their 
several forms , all parts of all' plants are made up. 
The kind of which we are now speaking is the 
simplest form, an oval bag of delicate mem¬ 
brane. The contents of the cells will be spoken 
of in another article; for the present we wish 
to study their external characters. From what 
has been said, it is evident 
that the divisions forming 
the network seen under the 
microscope (figs. 1 and 2) 
are really double, and we 
know this, to be so, because 
the cells can be separated. 
Though the separated cell 
is more or less rounded, we 
see that in the mass, (fig. 1 
and fig. 2) they are six-sided; 
and as this difference in ap¬ 
pearance may be puzzling 
to some, it will be well to 
explain it. If a number of 
spheres, as bullets for instance, are placed in a 
vessel, it will be found that each one is touched 
by twelve of its neighbors, and there are of 
course large spaces between the balls. Now 
suppose that the spheres are of some yielding 
Fig. 3— cells. 
Fig. 2 —VERTICAL CUT. 
material, the mutual pressure being equal at 
twelve points, will bring them into twelve-sided 
bodies like fig. 4. That pressure on all sides of 
the yielding cells is the cause 
of their twelve-sided form, 
may be shown by a simple 
experiment. A soap bubble, 
ordinarily blown, is spher¬ 
ical, the pressure on all parts 
of its surface being the same. 
Now take a clear glass bottle, 
or similar vessel, and place 
a little soap suds in the bottom, and then by 
means of a pipe-stem, rye straw, or some other 
small tube, blow into the suds so as to fill the 
bottle with a great number of small bubbles; it 
will be seen that all those not in actual contact 
with the glass, will be perfectly twelve-sided. 
An aggregation or mass of simple cells of the 
kind above described, is called cellular tissue , 
which forms the greater part of all very young 
plants; and this is the general nature of the 
flowers, leaves, and the soft portions of all plants. 
Being made up of short cells, this kind of tissue 
has no great amount of strength, and plants 
which attain any considerable size and need to 
be stronger, have cells of another shape and 
much firmer, which together form woody tis¬ 
sue ; this will be described another month. 
Easy Method of Propagating Plants 
from Cuttings. 
The following communication from one of 
our most successful cultivators, $111 be valued 
not only from the simplicity of its directions, 
but for their source also: “Iii the January 
American Agriculturist I observe a correspondent 
from Paris, C. W., making inquiry in relation to 
a work on Propagation of Plants. . As a few 
simple directions may be acceptable to others 
of your readers, amateurs as well as profes¬ 
sional florists, I will briefly give one of the 
simplest plans we pursue. We use what we 
here term ‘pans’—that is, the saucer used to 
hold water below flower-pots—but common 
kitchen saucers or plates will do equally well. 
These are filled with sand (any kind that is 
most convenient) and the cuttings inserted just 
thickly enough to touch each other, then watered 
until the sand becomes in a state of mud. This is 
the only condition of success: that the sand be 
kept in this half-fluid state until the cuttings are 
rooted, which will be in from ten to twenty 
days, according to the condition of the cuttings, 
and the temperature of the greenhouse or parlor 
in which they are placed. The best tempera¬ 
ture is from 70° to 75°, but it may range from 
50° to 80°. If placed in the greenhouse, the 
saucers should stand on a stage or shelf fully 
exposed to the sun: if in the parlor, then 
in the lightest and sunniest spot, and never be 
shaded, for so long as the sand is kept in a 
state of mud, the most tender cutting will not 
wilt. But once allowed to dry, the whole opera¬ 
tion will be retarded, if not entirely defeated. 
When rooted, the cuttings should be potted off 
at once into good soil, in the smallest-sized 
pots, and kept well watered until they begin to 
grow. I may further state that the best cut¬ 
tings to use are what we term ‘ young wood 
that is, the young shoot in the succulent state, 
before it attains its woody or hard character. 
In this way, roses, geraniums, fuchsias, carna¬ 
tions, verben.as, heliotropes, etc., in fact almost 
any cutting will root, if treated as above, 
without a loss of more than five per cent. 
Your most inexperienced readers can perform 
the operation of making a cutting and inserting 
it in the sand, just as well as I can. They may 
cut it where they please, at a joint, or other¬ 
wise, in length from 2 to 4 inches, and if the 
foregoing directions are strictly attended to, 
success is certain. There is but little mystery 
about any garden operation—a few s'm._>’e laws 
understood, and the whole thing becomes easy. 
But a host of charlatans have endeavored to en¬ 
velop the most simple operations in a maze of 
words filling quarto volumes, which would have 
been better understood if compressed into one 
page of. the Agriculturist. The above is not. our 
manner of propagating on a large' scale, but. it 
is the most simple and safe for those who have 
not the facilities of a regular propagating bouse." 
Jersey City , N. J. PlCTEIt HENDERSON. 
Winter Apples on Stocks of Early Sorts. 
It is a well-known fact that late varieties of 
apples will in some cases ripen prematurely, 
and that they will not keep well. This is often 
accounted for by peculiarities of soil and cli¬ 
mate. Geo. IJ. Cone, of Washington County, 
N. Y., attributes it to the fact that the late sorts 
are grafted upon stocks of early varieties. He 
says that an experience of forty years has con¬ 
vinced him that such is the case, and insists 
that it is of great importance that seeds foi 
raising stocks intended for late apples should 
be from long-keeping fruit. Mr. C.’s statement 
is contrary to the received notions regarding 
the influence of the stock upon the graft, and 
we give it a place with a view to call forth the 
observations of others. 
Raising Quince Stocks for Pear Trees. 
Several who wish to raise their own quince 
stocks, have made inquiries of the Agriculturist ns 
to their management. First, the kind of quince 
is of great importance. A very free-growing 
variety, known as the Angers quince, is the one 
employed, and is vastly superior to the ordina¬ 
ry slow growing sorts. There are two ways of 
propagating the stocks: by Layers and by Cut¬ 
tings. In obtaining them by layers, a young tree 
is cut down in spring, to within four or six iiicli- 
es of the ground. This will throw up numer¬ 
ous vigorous shoots which, in the autumn or 
the following spring, are to be earthed up, rais¬ 
ing a mound around them so as to cover the cut 
portion and the base of the new shoots with 
several inches of earth. The upper portion of 
the mound is usually made with a depression, 
like a saucer, to catch the rains. The shoots 
thus earthed up, strike root, and are fit for trans¬ 
planting to nursery rows the succeeding fall or 
spring. One or two of the shoots are left to 
continue the growth of the root, which, if the 
soil is well enriched, will throw up another set 
of shoots, and thus afford a supply of stocks 
each alternate year. 
In propagating by cuttings , vigorous shoots 
of six inches to a foot in length, are taken off 
any time in winter when they are not frozen, 
and buried in sandy soil below the reach of frost, 
or in a cool cellar in sand. These are planted 
out in spring, six inches apart in nursery 
rows. They should be planted so deep that but 
one, or at most two buds are above the surface, 
and but one shoot should be allowed to grow. 
A. S. Fuller, the well-known nurseryman of 
Brooklyn is particularly successful with quince 
cuttings, not losing five per cent. Ilis success 
consists in the fact that his cuttings are callused 
before they are set out. They are made in the 
