e been spoiled.

"Any of you can try this plant improvement. I see by Katharine's eyes
and Dee's also that they are going to try it. It is well if you have a
pair of forceps. Then you need not use your fingers against the plant at
all. Gently pull the pistil a bit forward, gently place the pollen on
with the scalpel and you have performed the operation entirely with the
proper instruments.

"The girls did some saving of fine specimens of flowers this fall, but
the kind of work of which I have just told you means far more. In the
one case you choose from what you have; in the other case you make what
you want.

"Good-by, again, until next Friday afternoon!"

V

INCREASING PLANTS

"This last garden season we have tried two methods of raising plants:
one was by seed; the other by slips or cuttings. The girls will typify
still another method with their bulbs. This last method is by division.
A bulb as it stores up its nourishment after the blossoming time forms
new little bulbs. These may be separated from the parent tuber if large
enough. You all saw me dividing my peonies. Those peonies doubtless were
started years ago from one or two roots. And now when I dug them up it
looked as if I were laying in a stock of sweet potatoes so great was the
increase.

"There are just three other methods of propagating or increasing plants.
These are layering, budding and grafting.

"Layering is done in several ways. Suppose you have a gooseberry bush
you wish to layer. The time to do the work is after the flowering season
is past. Choose a branch which has not flowered. Strip off the lower
leaves. Now where the old and new wood meet is the place for the cut.
Make a cut right into the stem which will be like a tongue. Let this be
about an inch long. Hold this to the ground with the cut side down. Bank
soil over this. At and under the tongue the new shoots will start, and
the new gooseberry bush grow from this. This new plant may be cut off
from the parent. If the twig will not stay bent down in this position,
cut a forked piece of wood which shall act as a pin. Do you picture
this? A branch bent so that not far from the parent plant it is buried
under ground with the rest of the root protruding from the ground.

"A rubber plant may be layered or topped as it is called. Rubber plants
have an ugly habit of going to top, dropping off their lower leaves as
they do this. So they look as if they were trying to develop into h