THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[August 15. 
504 
syringe will tend both to harden tlie cut points and 
free the stems from all impurity. 
Leaving the old plants for a little, let us look after 
the cuttings. Each kind has been put by itself, labelled 
and tied up as the plants were cut down. The cuttings 
may be of any length, from two to six inches, and up¬ 
wards. The medium size will generally answer best. 
It is advisable that every cutting should contain at least 
two joints; at each of these a leaf will have stood, and 
a bud will be formed, or forming, in its axil—the part 
enclosed between the footstalk of the leaf and the stem 
or shoot to which it is attached. For reasons previously 
referred to, remove the leaf from the lower part of the 
cutting, and cut straight through the bud at the joint 
with a sharp knife, allowing the leaves, if any, to remain 
at the upper joints, to carry on there as long as possible 
their peculiar functions. Other circumstances being 
favourable, the lower end of the shoots being best 
ripened will form the best cuttings; and even if they 
should not root so soon as those more soft and spongy, 
they generally make the nicest, stubbiest plants in the 
end. Cuttings from those parts which immediately 
support the flower-stalks ought to be avoided, unless it 
be a very rare and valuable kind, as such parts are too 
soft and spongy to make good plants. When it is nei¬ 
ther desirable to remove a shoot nor yet cut a plant 
down, small sturdy side shoots may often be obtained, 
aud these taken off close to the stem, placed under 
glass, and shaded, will make beautiful plants. 
The cuttings being formed by cutting straight across 
the lower joint, and in a slanting manner, half an inch 
above the upper one, it will next be advisable to dry 
the lower end, for half a day at least, whilst the top end 
is kept moist and shaded, and then proceed to planting 
them. This may be done in many ways. From the 
end of June until the middle of August, strong cuttings 
might be inserted in light sandy soil in the open border, 
just as Mr. Beaton practises with scarlet geraniums. 
Numbers, I might say millions, are thus propagated in 
the neighbourhood of London every year. Where the 
soil is strong and loamy, the easiest way to do this 
would be to rake out shallow drills six inches apart and 
fill them with sandy loam, or a compost of equal parts 
leaf-mould and sand. If watered well when they are 
inserted, they will not want much, excepting dustings 
afterwards, as they will have the advantage of the mois¬ 
ture contained in the soil of the garden. A little shad¬ 
ing in hot weather would be necessary; but those who 
have never tried such a plan would be surprised to find 
how little it would be required. Of course, as soon as 
rooting commenced it would be altogether unnecessary. 
The advantage of this system is, that all the labour of 
draining, and filling, aud carrying propagating pots, 
glasses, &c., is avoided; and when potted in good time, 
before they become gross in their habits, fine hardy plants 
are thus obtained. The disadvantage of the system is, 
that beginners seeing them growing so well, are apt to 
be too late in potting them, and thus a grossness of habit 
is produced, which causes the plant to feel the change 
when transferred to a pot. If possible, therefore, plants 
so struck should be potted before subjected to the heavy 
autumnal rains. This grossness of habit is prevented, 
and an earlier development of roots effected, by planting 
the cuttings in light sandy soil, under a hand light, or 
beneath the sashes of a frame, as the heavy rains are 
thus excluded, and keeping the atmosphere close and 
shaded when necessary preserves the leaves fresh. 
Even here, however, air should be given liberally at 
night, by tilting or removing the lights. Placing the 
cuttings round the sides of a pot that previously had 
been well drained, and then filled with light sandy soil, 
transferring them then to a cold frame kept close 
during the day, but with air given at night, is also a 
good plan, especially for rare kinds; and then, in such 
cases, the rooting process may be accelerated by moving 
and plunging the pots in a slight hotbed, after they 
have stood in the cold frame two or three weeks. 
Something of this plan is necessary when cuttings arc 
to be struck as late as September. The best plan of all, 
in the case of fine kinds which you wish to rattle on, is 
to follow a similar system, only with the exception of 
putting one cutting by the side of a very small pot, 
technically called thumbs, and removing it to a larger 
whenever it has filled with roots. In this case the 
base of the cutting should either rest upon the drainage 
or on the bottom of the small pot; when shifted it will 
be an easy matter to get the stem of the plant in the 
centre, instead of being at the side as when first in¬ 
serted. “ But why not put the cutting in the centre of 
the pot at once?” Because gardeners have found that 
cuttings strike sooner when, in addition to their bases 
resting on a hard substance, their sides also come in 
contact with a hard matter. “ But why is this?” Aye ! 
there is the difficulty; the bare enumeration of the 
theories would take up more than my limited space; 
one reason, however, for the present, must suffice :—In 
placing a cutting in the centre of a pot it is apt to get 
over wet, and to damp, and, if it escaped these evils, 
the soft matter by which it is surrounded allows of the 
expansion of the cutting, and thus size, laterally , may 
actually be gained with but little disposition to protrude 
roots; but when placed close to the porous side of the 
pot, not only is the danger of damping, &c., lessened, 
but the cutting finds an obstruction to its expansion 
laterally, and, therefore, not to be thwarted, sends out, 
either at the side or the base of the cutting, that cellular 
matter from which roots afterwards proceed. Much the 
same principle is here acted upon, though worked out 
in a different manner, as when we slit up the base of a 
cutting of a hard stemmed carnation, or skin a small 
piece off the wood from the opposite side of the bud in 
a vine shoot used as a cutting; the object being to 
ensure a more free protrusion of the cambium matter 
between the bark and wood, and the result being that 
roots are generally more quickly produced. 
But, however raised, the cuttings should be potted off 
shortly after they arc struck; kept close in a frame or 
pit during the day, until they are rooting freely (giving 
air, however, at night), and then set in the open air ; 
housing them in good time ; stopping them ; repotting 
those which require it in the end of October ; kept 
slowly growing all the winter; seldom allowing the 
thermometer to fall below 45°, and yet giving as much air 
as possible in all favourable weather, recollecting that 
most of the evils and waut of success in geranium grow¬ 
ing arise from a close, moist, cold atmosphere; stop and 
shift again in March ; encourage with a rise of warmth, 
gradually, of 10°, with plenty of air ; keep the plants 
near the glass to mature the buds; thin out some of 
the larger leaves at times, and spread out the shoots; 
give manure water frequently after the flower-buds 
appear, but not before, and they will reward you with 
nice heads of bloom in June and July. If bloom is 
not your object the plants may be stopped again in 
May, the shoots well tied out and encouraged, and 
shifted into large pots in July and August, so as to 
flower the following season in April and May. If this 
should not be desired, those stopped in May will bloom 
in the autumn, if not shifted. Those which bloom in 
June and July may be cut down, and from them the 
second crop of flowers may bo obtained next season. 
All this is not so easily done as talked about: the 
surface of the soil must be kept stirred, especially 
during winter; the foliage be refreshed with syringiugs, 
especially after February, and until the flower-buds 
appear; smoking with tobacco attended to whenever 
one green fly is seen; the plants kept near the glass, 
with nothing to obscure the light; and water judiciously 
