January 3.] 
TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
185 
tractcd at the bend, and the dormant bud then re¬ 
ceives the largest portion of it, or, at any rate, a bet¬ 
ter share than any of those buds beyond the bend ; 
and by-and-by, this lower bud opens out into a new 
shoot, which, being soft and pliable, the sap llows 
into it very easily. A few fresh leaves come next, and 
then a practical illustration of what I said a week or 
two back—that a few healthy leaves have more power 
than a great number of them in a languid state, like 
those that are on the bent shoot. 
Any time before the beginning of May will answer 
to bend down plants of the Glycine, and I cannot re¬ 
collect any other climber just now which will not do 
as well by being cut down at once, if they are very 
stunted ; nor do I think that it is necessary to retain 
the bent portion of the Glycine after the young shoot 
attains a height of live or six feet. Almost any 
young plant of a tree, or shrub, that is hide-bound, 
stunted, or has lost its leader, may be made to assume 
a new existence, as it were, by the same process of 
bending down the top as far as possible, and retain¬ 
ing it in the bent position for a season or two, by a 
firm tic or two to a stake. 
Any plant that is apt to make suckers may be more 
easily renewed by cutting it down to the collar, and 
by selecting one of the most promising suckers for 
the future plant, and destroying the rest; but many 
plants, as the pinuses and cedars, would die if cut 
down to the collar; but all of them yield to the bend¬ 
ing-down mode, and throw up a new plant, just as 1 
have said of the Glycine. 
This experiment was first proved in the botanic 
garden at Glasgow, just five-and-twenty years ago ; 
and I recollect very well the sensation it caused 
among gardeners, when Mr. Murray, the Curator, 
published the facts connected with the experiment 
in the Gardener's Magazine. The Chinese broad- 
leafed fir ( Gunninghamia lanceolata), was the subject 
of his first trials; thus a wide gate was thrown open 
to gardeners to enter the field of experimental in¬ 
quiry, which they soon did, and found the harvest 
easier to reap than many of their best advisers could 
at first believe. Many plants that are now as com¬ 
mon as blackberries were extremely rare in those 
days, and consequently high-priced; so that collec¬ 
tors of Pinuses, at least, were compelled to put up 
with plants of some of the kinds that were raised by 
cuttings, or else to go without them; and it was well 
known that such plants, in many instances, would not 
make upright, handsome trees, like those reared from 
seeds ; but all of them yield to the process of bend¬ 
ing down horizontally, and produce a tree in all re¬ 
spects, as handsome, natural, and durable, as if it 
had been reared on the same spot from a seed; and 
the application lias since been widely adopted with 
many kinds of plants without, as far as I could learn, 
a single instance of failure. 
But to return to climbers: let us suppose a strong 
clematis of some sort; for almost all of them arc apt 
to get too naked below, and to form a profusion of 
young growth at top. How is such a plant to be 
dealt with this winter, to bring it within the require¬ 
ments of those practical gardeners who write in these 
pages, or men like them?—for, after all, such must 
be our Mrs. Grundy. Well, then, put up the ladder, 
and set to work with the knife; but, first of all, let me 
ask you if you know how the flowers of these clema¬ 
tises are produced? On the young, or old wood, on 
spurs, or on what?—for that is my criterion forjudg¬ 
ing a pruner. Unless he can tell me in January how 
such and such plants produce their flowers next sum¬ 
mer, I know full well that all his prunings arc mere 
chance work, and may do more harm than good. 
Most luckily, for our present purpose, this clematis 
flowers on the wood of the current season, like the 
grape-vine; so we need not mind how much of those 
shoots of last years’ growth need be cut away, pro¬ 
vided that one of the bottom eyes of each be left. 
But as the bottom of the plant is very bare, 1 wish 
you coidd save three or four of the young branches, 
and we shall train them down to cover the bottom 
until we can get a supply of young wood in all parts 
of the tree. Now, all the young wood is got rid of, 
except those four long shoots to cover the bottom ; 
and wo can now arrange the rest with ease. You see, 
for want of cutting in the young wood to one or two 
eyes every winter, the whole of the shoots that grew 
for the last four or five years have extended up to 
the top, and made their young wood there, leaving 
all below quite bare; and not only that, but the first, 
or original, shoot was not pruned, or cut down, the 
first winter after planting, and the year following it 
began to grow just two yards from the ground, and 
you see the consequence now — the first six feet of 
this rampant plant is just as bare as amay-pole—not 
a twig nor a branch growing from it up to that height, 
and all above that having three times more shoots 
than are wanted. Nobody knows how many thou¬ 
sands of good climbing plants of all sorts are, at this 
moment, to be seen in all parts of the country in not 
a whit better condition than this clematis which I 
have selected for example, for it is one of our com¬ 
monest plants, and may be taken as the best repre¬ 
sentative of all the climbers that bloom on the wood 
that is made the same year. But as some of the 
clematises —for there are many sorts of them—are apt 
to mako suckers from tlio_ bottom, and therefore can 
hardly ever get bare below, I must now say that our 
example-plant is the common sweet scented one, 
called Travellers Joy, Old Man’s Beard, White Vine, 
and many more names in different parts of the 
country, and in books Clematis vitalba. Now, this 
plant is not at all willing to make suckers after it 
gets old, with a thick hard stem to it, and therefore is 
one of the most difficult to deal with when once it is 
allowed to run up a long way bare of branches. 
Another object I had in view in fixing on it is, to 
show how one part of a plant may be grafted or in¬ 
arched into a part of itself; for, in this instance, we 
shall be forced to resort to that plan, unless, indeed, 
the plant will be forced to make suckers as outlets to 
the large quantity of sap which cannot flow to the 
top, now that wo have taken so much of it away. 
Now, my primer is a hearty, honest fellow, although 
he does not well comprehend the principles of his 
art; but unless he has been out last night, or rather 
this morning, at a dance, or at some family gather¬ 
ing, he must understand this lecture on the clematis, 
anil I might safely leave him here to finish the 
prunings of our example-plant; but, for the sake of 
others at a distance we had better finish it. Four 
long shoots of last year’s growth are let free, and the 
rest cut to one eye at the top, and the greater num¬ 
ber of the older shoots had issued from about the 
middle height, or above six feet high of the stem. 
The next process is to select a middle-sized shoot, 
and cut it down to the last joint, or say, a trifle above 
the last joint, from the naked stem, and next May a 
shoot, or perhaps two shoots, will grow from this 
joint, giving us new wood down to within six ieet of 
the ground, and next year we shall cut down this 
very shoot to the same place, only one joint higher, 
and all the rest of the shoots between ibis one and 
the top of the plant wo cut at intermediate lengths, 
