PROPAGATION. 
17 
apple cutting. The same results follow the selection of similar scions— 
a point too often overlooked in the practice of grafting. Moreover, 
propagation by cuttings was held at one time to be a remedy for 
canker, and probably it was in this way: apples raised from cuttings 
had no tap roots; and if canker, as many held and still hold, is the 
result of the tap or other deep boring roots touching clay or other 
ungenial earth or water, of course it follows that if we deprive the 
tree of such roots as can reach such strata canker is avoided. 
The plan of propagating apples by cuttings is mostly reserved now 
for pot culture, and also as a most interesting amusement for amateur 
pomologists. 
The cuttings may be inserted from November to February, the former, 
however, or December, being the two best months. Choose and insert 
the cuttings as already directed; but, in addition, cover them overhead 
with a close frame, or put each sort in a group or patch to be inclosed 
under a cloche or handlight. Water when dry, which will not be often, 
as evaporation is checked by the glass. Shade the cuttings from the 
midday sun, and about midsummer the majority of them will be found 
rooted. As soon as this is found to be the case give air freely. As 
the plants get hardened off, remove the protection of glass and generally 
plant out in nursery lines early in August, so as to get them established 
in the open air before winter. Before insertion the top bud of the 
cutting, if it were a terminal shoot, should always be removed, for were 
that left on it would start into growth long before any roots could be 
formed, and so empty the cutting of its stored up juices, or, in fact, 
starve it before it could possibly refeed itseK. 
There is yet another method of raising apples from cuttings : this may 
be called the ‘summer striking of half ripened wood. It is but rarely 
resorted to, though there seems no reason why the] summer striking of 
apples should not prove as successful as the summer rooting of the 
half ripened wood of perpetual and other roses. June or July is the best 
season for this purpo'se. Choose cuttings of the smaller shoots of 
the current year, and remove them with a heel of the previous year’s 
wood; form exactly as other cuttings, but leave the whole of the leaves 
intact. Insert the cuttings in sandy soil in pots, and place them in 
a close frame plunged in a bottom heat of 60° to 65°; shade from the 
mid-day sun, and keep a moist atmosphere, so as to prevent the cuttings 
from flagging, and the result will be successful or otherwise in the ratio 
of the skiU and care with which the cuttings were selected and managed. 
It must also be admitted that some varieties refuse to root' by this 
method. But the modes of propagating apples by cuttings are worthy 
-of reconsideration, and the practice may deserve revival as a means 
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