1310

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART II,

closely clipped in, the seeds are seldom permitted to ripen. When the seedsare to be sown, they should be gathered the moment the capsules appear readyto open, and sown immediately in light rich earth, consisting chiefly of vege-table mould, which is well drained, so that the water may never lie on the seeds.

Cuttings of from 4 in. to 6 in. in length should be put in, in autumn, in asandy soil, and a shaded situation, and in a year they will be fit to transplantinto nursery lines. Layers may be made either in the spring or autumn, andeither of the young or old wood. The dwarf box used for edgings is propa-gated by being taken up, divided, and replanted. The roots of the box, beingnumerous and small, though by no means hair-like, like those of the .Erica­ ceae , retain the earth about them ; so that plants of box always come up witha ball; and hence the tree may be transplanted at almost any season, provided,if in summer, that the weather be moist at the time.. Box edgings are bestplanted early in spring, because the frost in winter is apt to destroy thoseleaves which have been cut in trimming the plants. Box edgings and hedgesmay be clipped at almost any season, except midwinter. Some garden-ers prefer trimming box edgings in June, just when the plants have nearly com-pleted their year’s shoots ; because they will afterwards make shoots ofa in or 1 in. in length, or, at all events, protrude a few leaves, and thus, in aweek or two, will conceal all appearance of the use of the shears. When thispractice is followed, it is necessary to go over the edgings or hedges in July,in order to cut neatly off with the knife any shoots that may have been pro-truded too far ; taking care not to cut the leaves. The more common prac-tice is to clip the box in autumn; but in that case, as many of the leaves areinjured by the shears, their marks remain till the middle of the following May.The edging or hedge looks well for a fortnight at that season; but afterwards ithas rather a neglected appearance, till the next trimming season, which is in thebeginning of September. The superiority of the June clipping must be obvious,whether applied to edgings, hedges, or mural or sculpturesque ornaments.Box edgings, when kept low, if they are wanted to endure many years, requireoccasionally to be cut in almost to the ground; and this operation should onlybe performed on one side of the edging in one year, and not on the other sidetill the second year following. When treated in this way, both edgings andhedges will, on good loamy soil, last an extraordinary length of time; whereas,if they are continually clipped on the surface only, a network of shoots isformed there, which, by excluding the air from the stem within, occasions thedecay of the weakest; and the edging or hedge becomes naked below, andunsightly. Sometimes this evil may be remedied by cutting down; but, ingeneral, the best mode is to replant. The form of the section of a box edgingor hedge should always be that of a truncated triangle; the broadest endbeing that next to the ground. In the case of edgings to walks, or to flower-beds, their breadth at the ground may be 3 in., the height 4in., and the breadthat top 2 in.; or half these dimensions may be adopted. In every case, both ofedgings and hedges, the base ought always to be broader than the summit, inorder that the rain may fall on the sides, and the light of the sun strike onthem with more force. In clipping box trees into artificial forms, it is usualto enclose the tree in a slight frame of wirework of the form proposed : thewire should be copper, and painted green, for the sake of durability, and torender it inconspicuous. The same kind of skeleton wirework, or trellis-work,is put up for mural and architectural topiary work.

Insects and Diseases. The box is very rarely attacked by insects, and hasvery few diseases. There is a proliferousgrowth of leaves at the points of theshoots, which appears in some seasons,and is'probably occasioned by the punc-ture of an insect, but of what specieswe are not aware. The fungus Puccinin_Buxi Grev. (Jig. 1319.) is found occasion-ally on the leaves.