tained, as well as from the want of that care to which plants in a nursery are accustomed, but which cannot be extended to them on a larger scale, as to make it doubtful whether much advantage is obtained by the process—and whether more time is required by cuttings, for the development of their roots, or by rooted plants, to reconcile themselves to their wew situation.
Rooted plants are also procured by layers. A strong shoot being chosen in spring, and the buds nearest the stock being carefully removed; it is bent carefully into a small trench. prepared for it. The extremity, which rises above, is fixed to a small prop, and in autumn a rooted plant is obtained, when, or at the commencement of spring, it may be separated. A better method is, to carry the shoot through a basket of earth; but this is too expensive to be practised on a large scale.
The greatest caution is recommended, in selecting the stocks, from which to take cuttings. When the mother plant has not finished half its career, it is still endued with all its vegetative energy, therefore, they should have reached the age of eight or ten years, where the vines subsist during twenty-five or thirty years, and from twenty to thirty years, where they endure a hundred. It ought to be ascertained, that they produce large and well ripened fruit; that their wood is strong,
