ound, as
shown in Fig. 6. When the cuttings in a row are placed, two inches of
soil are put in and pressed firmly about the base of the cuttings.
Then the trench is evenly filled with earth and the cultivator
follows. Doing duty by the young plants consists in cultivating often
during the summer to keep the soil moist and mellow.

[Illustration: FIG. 6. Planting cuttings.]

The cuttings are planted as soon as the ground is warm and dry enough
to work. To delay planting too long invites injury from drought, which
almost annually parches the land in eastern America. Irrigation gives
more leeway to planting time in the West. When warm sunny weather,
accompanied by an occasional shower, predominates, the cuttings start
growth almost at once, as shown in Fig. 7, and by fall, all things
being propitious, make a growth from four to six feet. With the
cuttings three inches and the rows three feet apart, 58,080 vines may
be grown to the acre.

[Illustration: FIG. 7. A cutting beginning growth.]

_Single-eye cuttings._

New and rare varieties are propagated from single-eye cuttings,
thereby doubling the number of plants from the propagating wood. This
method gives an opportunity, also, to start the work of propagating
early in the season, since single-eye cuttings are nearly always
rooted by artificial heat. But the greatest value of the method is
that some varieties which cannot be propagated in any other way
readily grow under artificial heat from single-eyes. Well-grown vines
so propagated are as good as those grown by any other method, but the
great disadvantage is that unless much care and skill are used, vines
from these cuttings are poor and quite worthless. It is also a more
expensive method than growing from long cuttings out of doors.

There are several ways of making single-eye cuttings. The most common
form of the cutting is the single bud with an inch of wood above and
below, the ends being cut with a slant. Some modify this form by
cutting away the wood on the side opposite the bud, exposing the pith
the whole length of the cutting. In another form, a square cut is made
directly under the bud, leaving an inch and a half of wood above. Or
this last form is modified by making a long sloping cut from the bud
to the upper end, thereby exposing the maximum amount of cambium.
Advantages are claimed for each form, but these are mostly imaginary,
and the cutting may be made to suit the fancy of the propagator if a
f