CUTTINGS are branches or portions of branches of trees or shrubs, employed to produce new plants, by the insertion of the lower end into the earth. By care, and in the most favorable circumstances, almost any tree or shrub may be propagated by C., but sonic only with great difficulty, and soft-wooded trees or shrubs most easily. I\ oth ing is more easy than to propagate willows, fuchsias, currants, gooseberries, etc., in this way; but many other plants, commonly propagated by C., require greater attention on the part of the gardener, warmth, a uniform (lamp atmosphere, and shade. Some kinds of apple are occasionally propagated by C., and in warmer climates than that of Britain, this mode of propagation us found suitable for a greater number of kinds. C. are most advantageously taken from branches of which the wood is young, yet at least a year old. The top is generally cut off, and not much more left above ground than is inserted into it. Care must be taken in planting C. not to use such force as to strip off the bark Some herbaceous plants are propagated by C., which, in pinks and carnations, are called pipings.
Sepia and Sepiadee, a genus and family of cephalopodous mollusks of the order dibranehiata. See CEPHALOPODA. The body is oblong and depressed, sac like, with two narrow lateral fins of similar substance with the mantle. There is an internal shell lodged in a sac on the back part of the mantle, somewhat oval and blade shaped, being comparatively thick near the anterior end, where it is terminated by a sharp point aflixed, as it were, to its general outline; the whole shell is light and porous; it is formed of thin plates with intervening spaces divided by innumerable parti tions; and consists chiefly of carbonate of lime with a little gelatinous and other ani mal matter, which is most abundant in the phragmocone, or internal harder part of the shell, where also the lammie and partitions are closer than in the outer part. The eyes
are very large, and the head is furnished with eight arms, each of which has four rows of suckers, and two long tentacles expanded and furnished with suckers on one side• at the extremity. The COMMON C. (sepia ojicinalis) is abundant on the British coasts.. Its skin is smooth, whitish, and dotted with red. It attains the length of a foot or more. It is one of the pests of fishermen; often, along with calamaries, partially devouring the fish which have been caught in their nets. In Scotland, the fishermen call it the 0 fish. It is not itself easily caught, being very active in making its escape by swimming, and also promptly throwing out its ink to darkenthe water around it. It is sometimes cast upon the shore, but far more frequently its bone, which is used for making pounce, tooth. powder, etc., for forming molds for small silver castings, for polishing, and for other pur poses in the arts; and was formerly often used in medicine as a corrective of acidity in the stomach, for which purpose, however, it is no better adapted than any other form of carbonate of lime. The ink of the C. furnishes the valuable pigment called sepia (q.v.), which is said by some chemists to contain a peculiar animal principle called melanine (Gr. inelas, black), and is wonderfully indestructible. Dr. Buckland indeed found the pigment remaining in fossil mollusks akin to the C. to be fit for use, and to make excellent sepia, notwithstanding all the unreckoned ages that have elapsed from the time of its secretion by the living organisms.—The eggs of the C. are not unfre quently cast ashore, clustered together like grapes, and are known to the frequenter of the coast as sea-grapes. —The flesh of the C. was esteemed by the ancients. A receipt for making. a C. sausage will be found in Athenteus.—Numerous species of C. inhabit/ different seas.