SELF-HEALING PLANTS.
Doubtless this is no more than a further illustration of the reasons that make cuttings strike roots. Sap rushes to the injured spot, and on its arrival produces growth which first heals the wound and then stimulates root growth at the spot. It is the peculiar art of the gardener to discover in each plant which sort of wound in which part of the plant most success- fully promotes the putting forth of roots. Carnations and pinks, some of which are best layered, some as cuttings of various sorts, give a good example. It is thought at Leeds, where the subject is being very energetically pursued, that in the ease of blackcurrants green wood cuttings, taken in summer, produce bushes more surely free of the conunon maladies (" reversion " and big bud) than the normal autumn cuttings from older wood.
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