D. R. K., (Roxboro', Pa.) To propagate the Arbor- vitea from cuttings, sink a square or oblong frame fitted with lights like a hot-bed, on the shady side of a fence or building. Take out the soil for 6 inches. Fill up its place with a mixture of fine sand and good garden soil, one-fourth of the latter to three-fourths of the former; make the cuttings of the arbor-vitea in the usual way - about 4 or 5 inches long - cutting off the bottom of each, square and smooth. Plant the frame full of these cuttings - about 2 inches apart, and press or pack the earth as firmly as possible about the cuttings. Water them, and put the glass on the frame. This should be done in April, and the watering must be kept up all the season - the lights being taken off at sunset and put on an hour after sunrise every day. The evergreen Euonymus will grow very readily from cuttings planted in a shaded place, or in a pot placed in a frame or green-house.

Cuttings #1

M. Loiseau recommends that the usual method of striking cuttings should be altered. When, he observes, a cutting is put in perpendicularly, the sap, whose natural tendency is to rise, is expended in pushing forward a new bud instead of forming a root. But if a cutting is laid horizontally, or even with its lower end higher than the upper, that is not the case; the sap prefers to move toward the higher end, or, at all events, is evenly distributed between the two extremities. This causes the callus to form so rapidly that if the cuttings are put into a warm place, eight or ten days are enough to secure its formation, or even that of roots. Autumn-struck cuttings, taken off a little before the sap ceases to move, and treated in this manner, form their callus so quickly that they are ready for planting out before winter. In winter, it is necessary to put in cuttings in a gentle heat (une couche tiede), or beneath leaves deep enough to keep out the frost, and even then a callus will be found to have formed by spring-time. As for cuttings taken off in May, they must have more heat, such, for instance, as is afforded by a hotbed, or a hothouse, and they will then take, in many cases, in a few days.

It was the opinion of Lampadius that the earths contained in plants are merely the effect of vegetation, and altogether independent of the soil in which they grow. The experiment was as follows: - Five beds, four feet square, by one foot in depth, each containing a pure earth, - alumina, silica, lime, magnesia, garden mould, and each mixed with eight pounds of cowdung, were sown with rye. The produce of each was speedily reduced to ashes, and the same principles were found in them all, particularly a portion of silica. Whence came the silica in the bed of alumina 7 According to Lampadius it was the result of vegetation. But Saussure, after Ruckert has shown that cowdung contains a portion of silica. (Sur la Veg. chap. ix. sect. 3.) Hence the substance which Lampadius could not account for but by means of vegetation he had supplied with his own hands. It is now known that the earths are partially soluble, some of them in pure water, and all of them with the aid of acids; so that we may fairly presume that they are taken up in solution by the root, and converted to the purposes of vegetation. Not that they are capable of affording any considerable degree of nourishment to the plant, but that some plants seem to be benefited by absorbing them.

The grasses have their stems thus strengthened, and the Equisetacesg and the Palms have their stems or leaves better fitted for the purpose of art. The leaves of Palms make a substantial thatch for covering houses, owing to the silica they contain; and the Dutch Rush is made use of to polish even brass.

Cuttings #2

If any one wishes to increase some by cuttings, it can be done in the following way: The varieties with single flowers root easier than those with double ones. Take flower pots about three inches high and eight in diameter; place some broken crocks in the bottom; upon this a layer of moss; and fill the remain-ing space with a mixture of two parts vegetable mould, two sand, and two powdered charcoal. For cuttings, take the young wood perfectly ripe; leave each cutting with three leaves, and cut it off at the lower part, just below a joint, with a sharp knife; then insert the cuttings, and cover them with a bell glass. Place them in a temperature from 45° to 50° Fahr., shady and cool, for about three weeks; if placed in the heat just after having been made, they will make callus, but no roots. At the end of this time, they should be removed to the hot-house. The single red flowering ones generally root in from three to four weeks; the double flowering varieties require some time longer.