378 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February 10. 
plant of a Verbena, or Anagallis, or of any other kind 
of which you expect a good many plants at turning-out 
time; or if that one plant has only a single shoot, and 
you take the first cutting of it too long, what remains 
will be too short for your purpose to get more cuttings 
from during the cutting season. 
All cuttings, except those with heels, ought to be 
made exactly in the same way, so that if you understand 
how to make a Verbena cutting, and also why it is that 
you made it just that way and not any other way, you 
understand how and why every other cutting in the 
country is made. Now, on the supposition that you 
never made or saw a cutting made in your life time, and 
considering the hard winter which made stock plants 
for getting cuttings from scarce, let me advise you not 
to try experiments on your own stock until you have 
learned to make a cutting as smart as any of them from 
the following directions:—You can learn the process 
by practising on any thing you can gather from the 
hedges, road-side, or any where—a handful of the tops of 
Privets, Lilacs, particularly Persian Lilacs, which arequite 
small at the tops—Apple, Pear, Peach, Plum, Cherry, or 
what not, will learn you equally as well, if you gather a 
lot of the tops, and try them as I shall point out. The 
dullest boy I ever had from the farm, or from the school, 
I could teach in ten minutes to make cuttings of most 
things, and surely it will not be any difficulty to one 
like you to learn all about them at once; still, a little 
practice on the wild things will not be amiss, seeing that 
first-cuttings will be very scarce this spring. 
I never like to see a cutting of any soft plant more 
than two inches long, except Geranium cuttings, and a 
few others; Verbenas, Petunias, Calceolarias, Lobelias, 
American Groundsel, Anagallis, and Fuchsias, I like to 
be only of that length for hotbed and spring work—any¬ 
thing shorter will do equally well, even half-inch cut¬ 
tings, when one can manage them, will be better in the 
long run than any thing heyond two inches. I put a 
great deal of stress on the particular length I wish for 
cuttings; and I am too old now, and have been so ac¬ 
customed to cuttings of all sizes, that if all the gardeners 
and writers in the country were to rise up against me, 
and say I was daft on that point, I would not give it up 
for the whole lot of them. The Verbenas grow with 
two leaves at every joint, one on each side of the shoot, 
and Petunias seldom grow that way, but on the flower¬ 
ing uoocl; this is another point on which I am just as 
firm as on the length of cuttings. 
In the spring, we often meet with store pots of Petu¬ 
nias that were struck last autumn, and on every plant 
in the pot the leaves are zig-zag instead of being in 
pairs—at least, the top part is not in pairs of leaves, not 
one of which is worth a pin, they are even worse than use¬ 
less, they will deceive you next May, as sure as fate, if you 
strike them now; the tops are “ flowering-wood,” and 
you cannot alter their nature. One should never make 
a cutting from the flowering-wood of a Petunia in the 
spring; we are often obliged to make them of flowering- 
wood in the autumn, because most parts are then in 
bloom. When one makes his Petunia plants from the 
flowering-wood in the spring, the bottom part will not 
swell out like the new top, which it will make; the plant 
gets top-heavy, aud unless it is fastened down at plant¬ 
ing-out time it snaps off, or it is so twisted about with 
the wind that it cannot grow ; and when it is fastened 
down, the hard, wiry bottom cannot pass up sufficient 
nourishment for the healthy new top, and there it re¬ 
mains everso long, and you cannot tell whether itwill live 
or die— all this time the bed might be covered. I have 
known very good gardeners deceived by these Petunias, 
without being at all aware of what was the matter with 
them; and I appeal to any of my readers who have 
been in the habit of planting out Petunias, if they 
have not, some time or other, met with more dis¬ 
appointment with them than with any other plants, 
if ever they stood still after planting. 1 have been so 
myself, and found some of such plants to go off for two 
months after planting time without knowing why, and 
I was a long time before I found out the reason, but 
after finding out the cause of their going off, 1 made a 
practice of cutting back all my store pots of them in 
January, so that the propagators couldnot err in making 
cuttings from the wrong parts; after that, I seldom 
failed in having the Petunia-beds as full and as early 
ready as any beds in the garden. Therefore, before we 
set about learning to make cuttings, just look over your 
store pots of Petunias, and if the leaves are alternate 
on the top of the shoots, cut them all down to the old 
leaves which were on the cuttings last autumn, and put 
the pots into heat, they will then make new wood for 
the very best kind of cuttings, and be quite time 
enough. Although there is not another plant that does 
so bad from flower-wood as the Petunia, there are many 
that will be backward in starting next May, when 
planted out, if the cuttings are made now from the old 
wood or j)ots that stood stock still all the season; to 
get over this, many gardeners put the store pots into 
heat in January, so as to force a little growth to get the 
first cuttings from. 
Altogether, I think the best way will be to say that 
the first crop of cuttings from all your soft-wooded 
plants ought to be from growth made since the end of 
last November. Those who do not want immense 
numbers seldom begin before the end of February, 
when there is no lack of this young growth, but for 
those who must begin with the new year, there is 
nothing for it but to force on purpose. 
The best crop of Verbenas 1 ever had, was once when 
the fly took to all my stock of them, in a cold house, at 
the end of November, and as nothing else in that house 
was flyed, I ordered the whole lot of Verbena store pots 
to be removed to a house where we were forcing Roses, 
and all kinds of plants for the conservatory, and where 
a moist heat of between fifty aud sixty degrees was 
kept, with good airing. I forget, now, if it was from the 
weather getting very cold, or what, but the Verbenas 
stood in the forcing-house, up on a shelf close to the 
glass, till Christmas, and every one of them made a 
growth in the time fit to make cuttings; the cuttings 
were made, aud two more crops of healthy, strong 
growth were got before the old pots were removed. All 
our Verbena plants for that season were rooted before 
the end of February, and all the old store pots were 
thrown away. Once more ; ifstore cuttings of Verbenas, 
or of almost any soft-wooded plant, are badly injured by 
the fly, and look black or smutty, no cutting should ever 
be taken from such parts, the tops must either be cut 
off or forced to new growth before cuttings are fit to be 
made from them. 
The way to make a cutting is this—you first of all 
cut off the top of a shoot, say of a Verbena shoot, as 
being one of the easiest, measure with your eye down to 
the pair of leaves that will come the nearest to two 
inches, and cut it just above the next joint lower down, 
the bare piece from between the two joints will serve 
you to hold between the forefinger and thumb of the 
left hand, while you cut off the two opposite leaves with 
a very sharp knife; cut the leaves, or rather the leaf¬ 
stalks, quite close to the stem of the cutting, but do not 
injure the buds which nestle there; now take the top of 
the cutting between the forefinger and the middle finger, 
and put the joint from which you have just cut the 
leaves on the thumb-nail, and cut right across, just 
below the joint, with a clean cut, and the cutting is 
made; if the knife is blunt, or if you put much stress i 
on it, you will make a bruised cut, or if you cut with a i 
pair of common scissors it will be the same, and a i 
bruised cut on so soft a part is sure to rot and fester as j 
