Febku.uiy 10. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
379 
soon as it is planted, and water or moisture gets to it, 
but a clean cut will stand safe long enough for the 
cutting to make roots, as the stem of a flower would in 
a glass of water. 
Many kinds of cuttings would suck up more water 
than was needed if they were cut off half-way between 
two joints, arid would run the risk of being killed by 
too much water so taken up, and that is the reason why 
they cut so close to a joint or a single leaf, because the 
stem is harder there than between joints or leaves, and 
will not take in so much water in consequence. Eor a 
Vorbeua, however, it is not at all necessary to cut close 
to a joint, for the joints of them are of the nature of 
Strawberry-runners, the, one will root as well as the 
other at the joints, if they touch the ground; sooner, 
perhaps, than if the joints were buried deep in it. 
If I bad to plant a new bed with Strawberries to¬ 
morrow, I would take up the young plants, and leave 
six inches of the runner to every one of them, and I 
would then plant them like Cabbage plants, with a 
dibber, putting down the six-inch piece in the hole till 
the roots came just within it; with another push from 
the side with the dibber, 1 would make the six-inch 
piece as firm in the ground that you could not pull it 
up without breakiug tire leaves, and yet the roots would 
bo as loose as auything, and free to work in the bed in 
all directions, without any cramming and cramping, and 
a stranger could not see how the frost did not turn out 
my whole plantation, after the first hard night; yet they 
are all as firm as London. Now, Verbena cuttings, also 
Lobelias , and some Calceolarias, could be done exactly 
on the same plan, getting ns much of the space between 
the joints, to fix in the cutting-pot, as would do to hold 
it firm, with the bottom joint only within the surface of 
the sand. By this way we always did our cuttings of j 
very scarce sorts of Verbenas, or new ones bought in 
late in the spring, and gained one joint for every cutting 
we made, and that joint lhade two more cuttings by the 
next growth, which was a great help to get a good stock 
from a small beginning. The usual way is to take three 
joints for a free-growiug Verbena cutting, or a four-joint 
cutting, when the joints grow close together, then, by 
taking only two joints and the naked piece below, to 
fasten as a cutting, we saved the third joint for another 
growth. When you come to try this way, if you look 
sharp you may kill two birds with one stone; make a 
clean, smooth cut every time, and your cutting needs no 
more dressing, except cutting off the two leaves next 
the bottom, or if you have room in the cutting-pot, you 
need not even cut these leaves at all. 
I would not advise at all to have the soil in the 
cutting-pot for soft cuttings pressed hard, as some 
people do, aud as we must all do for Heath cuttings and 
the like of them, for I am quite sure that this hard 
pressing does more harm than good. To have a free 
nourishing compost is much better, and easier for the 
tiny roots to work in. I care not what kind of soil suits 
a soft-wooded plant best when it is out of the propagat¬ 
ing stage, I use only one compost for the cuttings of all 
of them, and I never press it hard, not more than if I 
was potting a Geranium, just two or three raps by the 
bottom of the pot on the board, then a thin layer of 
clean sand on the top to keep the cuttings clean and 
tidy ; an eighth-of-an-inch, or even less, will do just as 
well as an inch deep for any soft cutting, as the sand is 
not for the purpose of helping the cutting to root, but 
to keep all clean; many thousands of such cuttings 
never get a morsel of sand at all, but then the pot 
caunot be made so full as with the sand; more water 
will be needed, and some of the cuttings often die or 
damp oil' on the top; but with sand covering, and a 
good working bottom-heat, 70° to 80° strong, and no 
bad smells from the bed, I would not give a fig for a 
man who would lose one cutting out of five hundred in 
March aud April. 
The universal compost for soft cuttings is equal parts 
of peat, leaf-mould, and sand, sifted as line as possible, 
with an inch of the last siftings over a good drainage ; 
if leaf-mould is not at hand, I would rather use peat and 
sand in equal proportions than put any kind of loam 
with cuttings for fast work. I have often and often 
missed the leaf-mould when I had it in abundance 
under my nose, and l kuow that in the great nurseries 
they think it a most extravagant thing to use it at all 
for such common work. 
A three or four-inch pot is a better pot for soft cuttings 
than any other size, because, without good practice, ono 
is too apt to give too much water, and if the pot is 
larger, tiro compost will hold too much water for the 
safety of the cuttings; but with a small pot, well 
drained, and with such light compost as I used, one 
might water twice a day without doing the least harm. 
Scores of times have 1 watered many scores of cutting- 
pots three times a day, when the sun was strong in 
March, but very little to each pot, as it was done with 
the syringe, but then the machinery was perfect, and a 
man watching every turn and shade of the movements: 
bottom-heat up to 90°, top-heat seldom so low as that, 
and nothing to shade the sun from the glass frame, no 
bell-glasses in use, but no air allowed as far as it could 
be kept close. Five days allowed to strike Verbenas, 
Anagalises, Seuecios, and a few others; and ton days 
for the slower ones ; the heat, the sun, and the syringe 
were the prime agents, and if the syringe was neglected 
for one hour alter the frame was dry enough for 
another turn it would make a day’s difference in the 
rooting of the cuttings, and perhaps destroy some of 
them altogether ; it was just like risking oneself in an 
express train—the greater the danger and the speed, the 
more exciting, and the sooner ended ; but the turn of a 
straw, and we shudder at a distance from the scene. 
When one has to raise seeds, or seedlings, and force 
some Hyacinths, or grow young Cucumber or Melon 
plants, or any other thing requiring a different treat¬ 
ment from cuttings in a two-light box or pit, if a tern 
porury division cannot be made down below the rafter 
to separate the different things, it is more safe to have 
cuttings with some close glasses over them, bell-glasses, 
or squares of glass. I like squares best as giving less 
trouble, but things will root under a bell soonor; on 
the other hand, squares require double pots, and they 
need the inside pot, or cutting-pot to be small; and I 
hold it as firm as a rock, that a cutting-pot was never 
too small yet; then the square never wants wiping like 
a bell glass, only to turn it every morning, and the 
bottom heat is never too strong for the double pot, as 
there is always a little space between the two to let go 
the heat. Another use of the square is that it compels 
the hard-headed ones, the dulls and the drones, to make 
their cuttings short enough so as to find head-room 
without being obliged to put the cutting-pot inside very 
large ones on purpose for head-room. Add to all this, 
that if you must have top glasses, you must either take 
a square of glass and double pots, or else lose the best 
part of the cutting-pots by the bell-glass, the sides of 
the pot all round being the very best part for all cuttings, 
and that cannot be had if the bell is on, unless you 
double pot and put sand between the two for the glass 
to rest on ; but really, for such propagation as we are 
now contemplating, this is too much of a good thing, 
just like carrying coals to Newcastle. It was necessary, 
however, that I should show these different ways before 
we decided on how the cuttings were to be planted. 
When the frame or bed is close, and is entirely given 
up to cuttings, no glasses arc needed unless one likes, 
then the pots may he brimful, and the cuttings planted 
as shallow as wiil just hold them steady, and no more, 
