Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/187

Rh grafts; seeds should be sown in well drained seedpans filled with a mixture of equal parts peat, leaf-mould, and silver sand. Cover them an inch deep and pack them away in a moist warm place and never allow them to get quite dry. They will be two years in germinating and it is no use to endeavour to hasten the process by artificial heat. Cuttings are to be prepared from the wood of the season when nearly ripe and every joint will make a plant if the leaf is not removed. Insert them firmly in sand and keep them cool and slightly moist for three weeks, then put them in a moist heat of 70° and they will soon make roots and must be potted



off in sandy peat and kept growing in a temperature of 50° to 60° the first winter. The easiest mode of propagating is grafting by approach, or, as it is more commonly called “inarching.”

This may be performed during summer or autumn, after the wood is ripe, or early in the spring before the plants begin to grow. We prefer the spring, because there is then a long season of natural heat to perfect the union, and the scions may be sooner cut from the parent plants.

Place side by side the two plants that are to be operated