| tings. 
CUTTING. 
position of the foot. Whenever cutting is ob- 
served, the precise part of the hoof or shoe which 
occasions it should be promptly and carefully as- 
certained; and this ought to be rasped away as 
much as can be done with safety, and, if neces- 
sary, put out of its noxious position by altering 
the inclinations of the foot in shoeing. Cutting 
is frequently occasioned by mere fatigue or weak- 
ness, and, in consequence, often afflicts young 
horses which are ridden hard over deep heavy 
ground ; and when any risk of it occurs from this 
cause, the exposed part ought to be protected 
with leather or a boot, or, what is far better, the 
animals ought to be allowed rest, ease, and re- 
cruitment. 
CUTTING. A detached part of a twig, branch, 
or shoot of a plant, used for producing a new in- 
dividual. <A piece of willow or of poplar, stuck 
| into the ground, strikes root, forms branches, and 
becomes a tree; and pieces of great multitudes 
of other plants, including many hundreds of the 
shiest and most delicate in our gardens, are com- 
monly used in the same way, for propagating 
their respective species. The probability is, too, 
that if due attention were paid to soil, tempera- 
ture, moisture, age of cutting, season of using it, 
and other circumstances, all plants whatever, 
which form buds, could be propagated from cut- 
The age at which a cutting of any one 
species will strike best or strike at all is matter 
of experiment; but it seems to be invariable or 
to require only befitting circumstances, so that a 
single ascertaining of it becomes a portion of the 
common stock of horticultural knowledge. The 
proper age and circumstances for any untried 
species, also, may be proximately estimated from 
those of the most nearly related or most nearly 
analogous tried species; and so accurately can 
estimates be made, that some experimental gar- 
deners propagate from cuttings of newly-discoy- 
ered and delicate plants almost as successfully as_ 
from cuttings of indigenous and coarse ones, 
and appear to the uninitiated or to bunglers al- 
most as if wielding a magical or thaumaturgic in- 
fluence. Every cutting is merely a group of two 
or more buds or “ eyes,” continuing attached to 
a portion of cortical and woody texture; it pos- 
sesses, In the buds, those embryos of enlargement 
and fructification, which become developed upon 
a parent stock by natural growth, and upon a 
foreign stock by means of the artificial process of 
budding; it possesses, in its portions of cortical 
and woody texture, a natural and living organi- 
zation for taking up liquid nourishment to the 
buds, to sustain and feed them during their pro- 
gress of expansion; and it may possess, also, in 
an attached leaf or two on its upper part, a na- 
tural and living organization for elaborating the 
rising sap, imbuing it with carbon from the at- 
mosphere, and sending it down, in the character 
of cambium, to stimulate and feed the formation 
and growth of roots. But a full and minute view 
of the Oe aa on which a ee 
919 
becomes a plant, may be obtained by reference to 
our articles ABsorpTIoN, Bup, and Buppine. 
An ordinary cutting contains two buds, the 
one near its lower end, to serve as the rudiment 
of roots, and the other near its upper end, to 
serve as the rudiment of stem and branches. But 
whether it contain only two buds or a greater 
number, it is inserted in the soil quite to the 
vicinity of its uppermost bud; so that only one 
bud may be exposed to the stimulating power of 
light and air, and that the largest possible pro- 
portion of the surface may be immersed in mois- 
ture and darkness, and may there be facilitated 
in the formation of roots. 
considerable difficulty in striking, it is covered 
with a bell-glass, in order that it may be sur- 
rounded with a constantly moist atmosphere, and 
may be protected from the exhaustion of exces- 
sive evaporation; and when it has eminent difh- 
culty in striking, it is set either in pure silex, 
technically called silver sand, or with its lower 
extremity resting on the bottom of the pan or 
flower-pot in which it is placed, in order that it 
may be protected from gorging and internal stag- 
nation by a too plentiful absorption of crude sap. 
In many instances, an entire leaf or a part of a | 
leaf is left attached to the upper extremity of the | 
cutting, in order that it may elaborate the as- 
cending sap, and perform from the outset some 
of the functions of a perfect plant. 
Mr. Niven, the curator of the Dublin Botanic 
Garden, says, in a paper which was read to the 
British Association at Liverpool in 1837, “ There 
appear, exterior to the wood itself,’ or duramen, 
“two perfectly distinct principles; the one pass- | 
ing upwards from the roots to the development. 
of leaves, which I would call the leaf principle, | 
for I find it cannot be changed; and the other 
passing downwards from the leaves to the devel- 
opment of roots, which I would call the root prin- | 
ciple, and which also appears to be equally per- 
manent, 
found in the case of propagating plants from 
cuttings. Each cutting appears to contain within 
itself so much of the two principles, that it only 
requires to be placed under such circumstances 
of atmosphere as will tend to preserve the action 
of the leaves without collapsing, until the de- 
scending principle has had time to ramify itself, 
through their action, into roots; when, by a gra- 
dual removal of the bell-glass, the plant is pre- 
pared to perform its various functions unaided, 
as well as to meet the vicissitudes of a constantly 
changing atmosphere. The one principle, I have 
no doubt, will be found to proceed principally 
from the soil to the expansion of leaves, and the 
other from the combined agency of the atmo- 
sphere to the formation of new wood and roots 
and the extension of the roots.” Mr. Niven’s 
doctrine has been contested; yet it is worthy of 
grave consideration and of experimental testing ; 
and, in so far as it is true, it shows the propriety, 
or rather the necessity, of having as much leaf 
A very satisfactory proof of this is | 
When a cutting has | 
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