The writer has known women who could root roses with the greatest ease. They would simply break off a branch of the rose, insert it in the flower-bed, cover it with a bell-jar, and in a few weeks they would have a strong plant. Again they would resort to layering; in which case a branch, notched halfway through on the lower side, was bent to the ground and pegged down so that the notched part was covered with a few inches of soil. The layered spot was watered from time to time. After three or four weeks roots were sent forth from the notch and the branch or buds began to grow, when it was known that the layer had formed roots.

Several years ago a friend took a cheese-box, filled it with sharp sand to the brim, supported it in a tub of water so that the lower half-inch of the box was immersed. The sand was packed down, sprinkled, and single-joint rose cuttings, with a bud and a leaf near the top, were inserted almost their whole length in the sand. This was in July, a hot month, when it is usually difficult to root any kind of cutting; moreover, the box stood on a southern slope, facing the hot sun, without a particle of shade. The only attention given the box was to keep the water high enough in the tub to touch the bottom of the cheese-box. In about three weeks he took out three or four dozen of as nicely rooted cuttings as could have been grown in a greenhouse.

The "saucer system/' in which cuttings are inserted in wet sand contained in a saucer an inch or two deep, to be exposed at all times to the full sunshine, is of a similar nature. The essentials are, to give the cuttings the "full sun" and to keep the sand saturated with water.

Whatever method is used, if cuttings are to be transplanted after rooting, it is important to pot them off in small pots as soon as they have a cluster of roots one-half inch or an inch long. Leaving them too long in the sand weakens the cutting.

Smilax of the florists is closely allied to asparagus (it is Asparagus medeoloides of the botanists). While it cannot be recommended for house culture, the ease with which it may be grown and the uses to which the festoons of leaves may be put entitle it to a place in the conservatory or greenhouse.

Seed sown in pots or boxes in January or February, the plants shifted as needed until planted on the bench in August, will grow fine strings of green by the holidays. The temperature should be rather high. The plants should be set on low benches, giving as much room as possible overhead. Green-colored strings should be used for the vines to climb on, the vines frequently syringed to keep down the red spider, which is very destructive to this plant, and liquid manure given as the vines grow. The soil should contain a good proportion of sand and be enriched with well-rotted manure.

After the first strings are cut, a second growth fully as good as the first may be had by cleaning up the plants and top-dressing the soil with rotted manure. Sometimes the old roots are kept three or four years. Slightly shading the house through August will add to the color of the leaves. The odor from a vine of Smilax thickly covered with the small flowers is very agreeable.