432 
j cornered cocked hats worked in circles. But then, the 
globe itself is nearly round, and why not everything 
else ? But a sensible pruner of a tree or shrub of some 
size will first cast his eye over the general outline, and 
see if nature has not impressed a style or mode of 
growth destined, by fair encouragement, to give it an 
express character; and on the seeking out and well 
sustaining such an individual impress on the trees and 
! shrubs of a pleasure garden, the interest thereof is much 
enfianced by this delightful and playful variety of form. 
As to the pruning of deciduous trees or shrubs when 
autumn planted, the practice is, I think, very doubtful. 
We all know that there is a reciprocity of action between 
the root and the terminal points of deciduous trees be¬ 
times in spring, and that through this the sap ultimately 
gets into full play ; we know, also, that there is a greater 
sympathy between the terminal buds in general and tbe 
root, than attaches to the axillary buds, as yet but inci¬ 
pient germs. I do think it well, therefore, to suffer the 
•terminal points to remain until they are about to be de¬ 
veloped in April, and then to prune back with a rather 
sparing hand, carrying out and completing the opera¬ 
tion in the succeeding winter or spring, if requisite. 
On the removal of large shrubs, &c., let me advise 
that plenty of labour be at hand, and that it be made a 
maxim to keep the fibres sprinkled constantly during 
the removal—they must not be dry one minute, not, 
however, wetting the ball until planted. The holes 
should be prepared ready, and some of the compost 
placed on one side to fill in amongst tbe fibres; and 
being made six inches deeper than requisite, and the 
subsoil broken, tbe six inches may bo covered with old 
leaves or rotten rubbish-heap material; the ball set upon 
it. When the soil is filled in just to the top of the ball, 
tbe whole should be flooded with water, and when this 
is settled, the remainder filled in, leaving a hollow basin 
at top, but no treading. R. Errington. 
PROPAGATION. 
After all, there is nothing about gardening, from 
beginning to end, half so interesting to most people 
as striking cuttings and rearing seedlings from seeds of 
their own saving. The older a gardener gets, the more 
foolish he becomes in these two divisions of his craft. I 
am not aD exception—people wondered what on earth I 
could do, or be fit for, without a garden, when I left 
Sbrubland Park; but, if I could redeem half of the 
idle time I spent there, and add it to all my time here, 
I should consider that I had but about one-tliird of tbe 
time which my garden would require from my own 
hands and head, and yet, compared witli the Sbrubland 
Park gardens, it is not bigger than a good sized flower¬ 
pot. The surest way of proving this, however, is to tell 
that I have just made a flower-pot of it this week, and 
for the first time; but to prove this proof, I must go 
back more than twenty years, and say, that in 1835, one 
of our number, and the best writer of our class at that 
time, had given a woodcut of a way of striking all sorts 
of cuttings by double pots. He is, happily, alive to 
! this day;—be reads Tins Cottage Gardener now and 
1 then;—and his name is—Mr. Forsyth. I never saw him, 
to my knowledge, but he will put me right if I do not 
explain his plan properly. 
All gardeners are well acquainted with the plan now, 
which seldom, if ever, fails in the most difficult cases, 
when we apply it in hothouses, pits, frames, and hand¬ 
glasses ; and I am firmly of opinion, that a slight altera¬ 
tion in Mr. Forsyth’s plan of striking cuttings will answer 
extremely well for Rose cuttings out in the open air. 
That alteration I have tried myself this week, for the 
first time, and by so doing, I changed my garden, in 
; effect, into a flower-pot; a proof positive, sure enough. 
September 5. 
The plan is thus described by Mr. Forsyth, in the 
Gardeners’ Magazine for 1835, page 502:—“Take a 
wide-mouthed 48-sized pot, crock it in the usual manner; 
then take a wide-mouthed small CO-pot, and put a piece 
of clay in the bottom of it to stop the hole; then place 
it inside tbe other on the crocks, which must be of 
sufficient depth to bring the rims of both pots to one 
level; then fill in the space between the pots with 
sand, or propagating soil; and let the cuttings be in¬ 
serted in the manner here shown, with their lower ends 
against tbe side of the inner pot. Plunge the pot in a 
cutting frame, or under a hand or bell-glass, in a shady 
place out-of-doors, according to the nature of tbe cut¬ 
tings, and the season of the year; and let the inner 
pot bo filled and kept full of water.” “ The advantages,” 
he says, “ are the regularity of the supply of moisture, 
without any chance of saturation; the power of ex¬ 
amining the state of the cuttings at any time without 
injuring them, by lifting out the inner pot; tbe 
superior drainage, so essential in propagating, by having 
such a thin layer of soil; the roots being placed so 
near the sides of both pots; and the facility with which 
the plants, when rooted, can be parted for potting-off, by 
taking out tbe inner pot, and with a knife cutting out 
every plant with its ball.” 
a. is the clay-stopping of the inner-pot. 
b. b. is the drainage of potsherds or broken crocks. 
c. e. the sand, or soil, in which the cuttings are inserted. 
d. the water in the inner pot. 
Every one of those advantages have been since 
proved to be quite true to the letter in a thousand in¬ 
stances. In short, a better system than this has never 
been invented; and he says himself, that Pink-pipings, 
and slips of Wallflowers, will grow this way easier than 
by any other mode; and I believe it, from what I have 
seen done with extremely difficult cuttings by the same 
process. Now, that I have to shift for myself, and pay 
the piper as well, I pay more for experiments than I 
ought to do, but I put in all my in-door cuttings on this 
plan, because there is no bother with them. I can leave 
them for days without any fear, and I seldom ever water 
them between the pots, except now and then in the 
height of summer. 
This week I have tried a modification of the plan, 
out-of-doors, with Rose cuttings, that are to be rooted in 
the open air and without glasses, and if my application 
of the plan succeeds out-of-doors, as I have every reason 
to believe it will, I am satisfied it will simplify the ! 
striking of Rose-cuttings, and many other cuttings, out- 
of-doors, ten-fold. It is a practical illustration of necessity I 
being the mother of invention. I am so convinced that 
all Roses ought to be grown on their own roots, except j 
standards, that we should hear less and less every year 
about blights and green eyes, and less of all other com¬ 
plaints about Roses, if we had them on their own roots; 
that almost any kind of garden soil would grow Roses 
on their own roots; that the buddiDg of dwarf Roses 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
