2?6 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Morello requires most. These need a good deal of 
thinning in general; still this depends, as before ob¬ 
served, on the quantity of young shoots laid in 
during the previous growing season. 
R. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Propagation. —In continuation of this subject, 
which at one stage of our progress was a source of 
great mystery, and, I may say, of great difficulty too, 
to the whole race of our best gardeners, florists, and 
nurserymen. Yes, the most expert propagator in 
London or Paris was once as ignorant of how to 
strike, or root, a cutting of any kind of plant as is the 
bumble cottager who is now, for the first time, re¬ 
solving in his mind to make an actual experiment 
this very spring on some shoots which he believes 
may be spared from the only plant he possesses, and 
which he probably would never have dreamed of buy¬ 
ing at all, had it not been that good fortune had 
thrown a number or two of The Cottage Gardener 
in his way, and which he took up “promiscuously” to 
read, because he happened to have had nothing bet¬ 
ter to do at the time. Hundreds, with no more 
experience than this worthy cottager, I am persuaded, 
will follow me word by word, and sentence after sen¬ 
tence, with such a degree of interest as few can 
understand who have not yet struck their first pot 
of cuttings. How careful, therefore, ought I to note 
down every particular; and, after all, I shall probably 
miss some things that ought to be explained or hinted 
at. Be that as it may, I would strongly advise young 
beginners, who may have already failed to root any 
kind of cuttings, or have had only a partial success, 
to write forthwith and let us hear, in as few words as 
possible, what they want more particularly to know 
about their cuttings, and say also what kind of accom¬ 
modation they have for performing the operation. 
Nothing will be easier, or more pleasant, than to 
answer such letters just now, as we are all over head 
and ears in this very work, and shall continue so for 
the next six weeks; so that, between one way and 
another, every reader of The Cottage Gardener 
ought to learn how to grow his own cuttings this 
season. The money which any one, having but a 
small flower-garden, might save by thus learning to 
grow cuttings effectually would soon buy a year’s 
volume of this work—to say nothing of the pleasure 
of doing the thing properly. 
We left off last week at making cuttings of ver¬ 
benas : the pots were all ready; and now we shall 
plant the cuttings, some of which are cut close under 
a joint, and some lower down. We must, therefore, 
part the two kinds, and put each into a separate pot, 
as they would not be all rooted at the same time; and 
it is always a great disadvantage when this happens 
where they have been close forced, because those which 
root first would spindle up too much before the others 
were rooted. For this reason, also, it is not a good I 
plan to take any cuttings from old stems or shoots j 
that were made last autumn—not but that they would j 
root, but they would be too long about it. Young j 
tops, or green side pieces, that have grown since the I 
new year are best—not only of verbenas, but of all 
the soft plants, such as petunias, anagallis, American '■ 
groundsel , and the like. As these cuttings are being 
made, lay them on a piece of brown paper, or in a ; 
flower saucer, or on something that is quite clean, as 
if dust, or dirt, or sand, gets among them it will be 
troublesome to wash it off; and if potted in a messy 1 
state they will never do much good. The first row 
[February 21. 
of cuttings is planted round the sides of the pots, as 
[ close to the rim as possible, and as close to each other 
j as that their leaves are not in contact with each other; 
and when a cutting happens to have the leaves rather 
large, we place them edgeways—if you know what that 
is: we mean, one row of leaves pointing to the centre 
of the pot, and the other row towards the outside of the 
pot. This is a great economy of room, as the cuttings 
that way may stand as close together as if they bad 
no leaves at all. For very young beginners, I would 
I advise to have only this one outside row in a small 
! pot; but after a little experience the whole surface of 
the pot may bo planted in circles or rings—only, the 
leaves must be kept free from each other, as where 
two of them lap together the wet hangs there too 
long, and will dam}) them in one night; and damp 
is very infectious, and would soon spread over a whole 
potful of cuttings. 
A dibber , or planting stick, may be made of any 
piece of hard wood, and in shape like a skewer, but 
the point need not be quite sharp, and the length 
anything from four to six inches; but the length and 
size of the point must vary according to the length 
and thickness of the cuttings. I have seen a “ set” 
of cutting dibbers made very beautiful out of bone, 
and out of boxwood, and polished; and I have seen 
thousands of cuttings planted with a common pencil. 
These small cuttings must never be planted more than 
half an inch deep; and anything less than that will 
do, provided you get them a firm hold. The more 
shallow they are planted the faster they will root; 
and the more loose the compost is under them the 
better for the young roots, as they can grow away in 
it more freely. I have been disappointed once or 
twice by a good plantsman from a nursery, who 
could strike heaths , and any kind of hard-wooded plant, 
but he could not get on any how with such simple 
things as these soft cuttings. Sometimes he would 
lose one-third out of a pot, while one in a hundred 
ought to be considered bad luck. The reason for this 
was, that he adopted the nursery way of pressing down 
the soil and sand very hard, both before he watered 
the pots and after; indeed, he would ram the compost 
as if he was loading a gun. All this is necessary to 
be done when the cutting pots are intended for hard- 
wooded cuttings, which take a month or two to root; 
for unless such precautions are taken, it is found in 
practice that air will enter the sand, and ripen or 
harden these cuttings to such a degree that they 
would never root at all. But for soft flower-garden 
cuttings the compost and sand can hardly be too 
loose. If the cuttings can be made to stand upright 
until they are settled by the first gentle watering, it 
will be better for them; and when they do root, this 
loose compost will allow the young tender roots to 
spread rapidly through it; therefore, it is best to use 
it that way. 
There is another erroneous practice with respect to 
cuttings, founded on a misconception of a physio¬ 
logical law, which may be briefly stated thus. The 
more leaves a cutting is able to carry, or is artificially 
made to carry, the sooner it will root, because such 
leaves are the agents by which roots are formed, 
generally speaking; but there are many instances in 
which cuttings will form roots in the absence of any 
leaves: for instance, cuttings of roses without leaves, 
if put in last November, will be rooted, and that to 
a considerable length before young leaves are formed 
late in the spring. In such instances, the cuttings 
were charged with ripe sap by the leaves of last 
autumn, and from this sap they are enabled to form 
roots alter the leaves are gone; but these are exeep- 
