THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, February 17, 1857. 335 
SPRING PROPAGATION. 
Parliament meets so regularly in these days that we 
might fix on the time as a marked day in our calendar; 
thus, when you hear that the Minister has sent to his 
party to be at their post, you should send to the stable 
yard, and order so much good fresh dung to be got ready 
by the 3rd or 4th of February as will make a substantial 
hotbed to raise seeds and strike cuttings in, and then 
make a motion, or rather, pass a resolution unanimously, 
that that bed will do more real work in half a session 
than the Parliament can do till the Dog-days. 
I know nothing in gai-dening which is more likely to be 
universally remembered than the right time to make up 
a propagating bed in the spring, if we couple it thus with 
the meeting of Parliament; and if it can be got into 
working order by the middle of February, why it is as 
much as they can do in Parliament, and as much as 
any one need wish to do who has a good deal to learn 
yet on the subject, while those who are merely beginning 
to understand the mysteries of propagation will be in 
full time if tbeir propagating beds are fit to begin with 
by the 10th of March, so that this annual article on 
early propagation comes in just in time to “ cut both 
ways ” this season. 
Now, suppose there are ten thousand places in which 
a hotbed of this kind is to be made up for the first, second, 
or third time, there are just ten thousand chances to 
three that, with all our writings, there is only one-third 
of the number who can make a hotbed to be the ‘ ‘ real 
thing.” Without supposing anything, it is quite certain 
that one-third of the beds will be made too green, that is, 
the dung will not be one-half mixed as it ought to be, nor 
up nearly to the right pitch of heat, neither will there 
be enough of it. That kind of economy called penny 
wise and pound foolish will be sure to sway so many out 
of a thousaud, and quite right too. There would be no 
use for books if all could learn at one jump. Another third 
of the number will make up their beds with the dung so 
hot, that it is actually on the point of taking fire—spon¬ 
taneous combustion as they call it. Then the first third 
will have two-thirds of their cuttings, and all their little 
seedlings, if they appear, fogged or damped off before 
the “ heat is up.” They then take out pots and all, and 
giye a stir to the dung as deep as a dung fork will reach, 
level, pat down, put on the surfacing material, and in 
with the pots again. Another sulk of the bed intervenes, 
and after that a heat sufficient to destroy all life and 
property within the four corners of the frame, and 
between them all a season is as much as lost; but a 
great deal is learned—more than any one might think. 
Those who make or made their beds with the dung at 
its hottest pitch suffer in just a contrary way: the bed is 
so hot that nothing can be put into it for awhile, and the 
stench from it is insufferable, from a process which has 
never yet been explained ; I mean the process of convert¬ 
ing ammonia, or rather, the dung, which is highly charged 
with ammonia, into charcoal, or something like it. In 
turning the surface of such a bed you soon come to the 
long dung, and find it dry enough to light a fire with, 
and half way between blue and white, from the intense 
heat and the confinement of the bad smell, which is the 
same thing as ammonia. Now, some do one thing, and 
some another thing, with the bed in this condition; but 
all the doing on earth will never make a good bed out of it 
without first taking it to pieces, and shaking the freshest 
of it up with more fresh dung from the stables; but let 
us follow them. One forks it up, and pours a quantity 
of water on it; another, after shaking it up, puts an 
extra coat of tan, or sawdust, or sifted coal ashes over 
it, and goes at it again, aud for a week all seems right 
enough; but, as soon as the violent heat is over, the 
heat declines so fast that nothing will grow kindly 
in it. Then linings are applied; after that comes heat by 
fits and starts, so that one does not know for two days 
running how to mauage about giving air; but a lining 
to a thorough-made bed is the life and soul of it all 
through the season, provided that some dry litter is kept 
constantly over the lining, so as to keep down the rank 
steam, and care is taken that the bad smell from it does 
not get inside the frame; for if it does good-by to all 
that is then inside. 
A man who has been in the habit of making hotbeds 
for Cucumbers and Melons only is as likely to go wrong 
on one of the essential points of a cutting bed as the 
man who is beginning his first bed, aud that point is 
the degree of heat. They make Cucumber beds very 
hot early in the season. The way they manage that is, 
after turning and shaking the dung so thoroughly that 
not a lump of droppings, or even hardly three straws 
hold together, the bad smell gets off so fast that they 
can put up the bed before the dung is half up to the heat 
it would come to. Now, the secret for making a cutting 
bed is to have the dung as thoroughly mixed and di¬ 
vided as for Cucumbers, and then to turn it twice more 
after an interval of three days each time. The object 
is to get the heat of the dung “ on the decline,” and to 
use more of it than for Cucumbers, to make up for the 
difference of heat. Of course a good gardener can so 
manage as to make any kind of bed do; but I am con¬ 
fident that cutting beds must be made on a different 
plan from a Cucumber bed; it must be a deeper bed, a 
wider bed, and a bed not nearly so hot at first as for 
Cucumbers. From 60° to 70° or 75° is hot enough for 
cuttings, unless one is very expert at them ; then you 
may go up to 90° and welcome, but 00° in the morning 
is a good pitch for a new beginner for the first season. 
A one-light box should have the bed four feet deep at 
the back, aud six inches wider than the box all round. 
A two-light box will not require so deep a bed, unless 
it is very early in the season; but I must confess my 
own partiality to deep beds; then the dung may be 
worked till it is as “ sweet ” as going into a well-regulated 
stable. For a tliree-light box the rule is three feet at 
the back; but I would just put six inches more on it if 
I had the chance, and they would be with hardly any 
straw, only one-half spent litter or droppings, and one- 
half old or dry rough tan, or, if I could not find tan, I 
would use cinder ashes, not very fine or too coarse, 
just middling. That is another grand secret for cuttings; 
and a third secret is never to give so much water to any¬ 
thing in the cutting bed as to run the water to waste, 
and so chill the bed. 
Most kinds of seeds which are sown in cutting beds 
will do well enough without the pots being plunged, 
except just to get bottom hold on the slope of the bed; 
but all cuttings for the flower garden do better from 
the pots being plunged to the rim, and sifted coal ashes 
are the best thing, or at least the safest, to plunge such 
cuttings in. White sand is excellent for plunging in, 
but few can get it. Three inches is the right depth for , 
plunging in, because 60-sized pots are the best size j 
to learn to grow cuttings in; or, if 48-pots are used, 
three inches will be sufficient, as their bottoms can go 
a little into the bed, or they need not be plunged so 
deep; indeed, 48-pots need not be plunged more than 
half their depth. In many of the propagating houses 
the top heat is often more than the bottom heat at the 
bottom of the pots; but even in that case 60-sized pots 
ought to be plunged to the rim, and the reason is that 
they require so much less water when pluuged ; and the 
less water a soft cutting gets, or rather, the more it 
does without, the better it is for it. 
Some of these points I only learned this time last 
year, when we were striking for the “ Experimental,” 
and ten years ago I should have been the first to pooh, 
pooh at so much bother all about nothing, as one might 
say, but which is yet all in all to the greatest number. 
