Of course, it would
be idle to talk of a summer bottom heat of 60 deg., but instead of that,
they get one of about 80 deg., and depend upon a close, uniform, high,
moist temperature to carry out the same results.
With this, rose plants can be and are raised by the hundreds of
thousands from the single eye to a cutting, with a loss of not five per
cent in the aggregate, and often not one per cent. It is very evident
that with new or scarce plants this is an enormous average, as by its
means firms can import the new European plants in the spring, at perhaps
very high rates, start them into immediate, rapid growth, and from half
a dozen plants to work on, maybe in the next spring markets have
hundreds for sale.
This is all new as managed by us old 'uns in former times, but he who
expects to be up with the present day and cater for that class of
patronage, must take the new and not the old way of doing things, or he
will, in the vernacular of the streets, "get left."
As we are on this particular topic, however, and as the amateur window
plant-grower may want to propagate some little stock as well, even if
not on these "high-falutin" ways, it might not be amiss to say that
beyond the methods of "slipping" here and there cuttings in and among
others growing in pots, or, mayhap, in a pot all by themselves, they can
readily root lots of plants in a water and sand bath, which is nothing
more than taking a deep saucer, putting half an inch of sand in the
bottom, filling up the saucer full of water, and keeping it full; stick
your cuttings into this, place right in the sunniest spot of your
window, and they will grow about as certain, many of them, as if treated
by the florist's more portentious method.
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