Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1877 — A Propagating Secret. [ARTICLE]

A Propagating Secret.

UNDERthiahead the London Gardener'* Chronicle Bays: “It will be remembered that a month or two ago we alluded to an alleged extraordinary secret for propagating trees and grafting roses, whereby much time could be saved, offered for a small sum by an Austrian nurseryman, named Bachraty. This gentleman has since communicated an article on the subject to the Wiener Gartenfreimd. Briefly, his new method is as follows: Cuttings of shrubs and trees are taken off at the beginning of July, from sit inches to twelve inches long, according to the kind. The leaves are removed from the lower portion, which is to enter the ground: but those which will come above ground are left. Beds are prepared for them in the open air, by thorough digging and leveling, and afterward applying a superficial layer, about two inches thick, of rotten manure from a spent hotbed. The cuttings are then stuck in about two inches apart and in a somewhat oblique direction. Each .bed, when filled, is surrounded with a lath fence, so that shade may be given when the sun is very hot, and the cuttings are well watered with a rose-spouted can. This completes the operation. The only further care necessary is a sprinkling overhead three or four'times a day during the first week, if the weather be very hot; and once a day afterward, in the course of five or six weeks, treated in the manner indicated, the cuttings of most plants will have formed a callus, and further shading will be unnecessary. Late in the autumn a layer of rough manure, two or three inches thick, is spread over, for winter protection. It also serves as manure when the cuttings start growing in the spring; and cuttings treated thus make extraordinary progress, forming plants equal to two-year-old plants from winter or spring cuttings. Very few, it is asserted, fail. The new method of grafting roses is the insertion of growing eyes early in spring, instead of dormant eyes in the summer. They are inserted in the main stem, one on each side, to form symmetrical heads. These make, it is said, as much growth the first season as the dormant eyes the second season."