A Self-cutting Bush .
Most of us now are acquainted with the ways of that most. popular hedge plant Lonicera Nitida ; but it has still some surprises. No plant, not even a willow or a poplar, is more ready to strike root from a cutting. One may double one's stock with no trouble at all, in almost any soil, but there are places, it seems, peculiarly congenial. A hedge that had been allowed to grow much too loose and straggly was at last
severely trimmed. A certain proportion of the cuttings were left lying where they fell. Several of these took root of their own volition. The points stuck just sufficiently far into the earth to give the buds the chance of converting, themselves into roots. No hedge-plant benefits more from severe pruning in its early days. Properly managed it will make a firm trim hedge as much as five feet high ; but if once given its head it is very difficult to bring back to a proper hedge form. Though the flower is of no spectacular worth, a plant or two is worth growing as a single shrub merely for the sake of the bright and evergreen leaf. Even a laurel, or for that matter an aucuba itself, may become a plant of great beauty if allowed free and unfettered growth.
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