Cuttings are usually employed by nurserymen to propagate the grape. These are made in many fashions. In all ordinary cases hard-wood cuttings are made from the ripened canes in autumn or winter when the vines are pruned. It is advisable to take the cuttings before the canes have been exposed to great cold. Select only those canes which are well-matured, solid and rather short-jointed. In common practice, the cuttings are cut into two-bud length, the lower cut being made close to the bud. The cuttings will range from six to ten inches in length. Some prefer three-bud cuttings (Fig. 43), but unless the cane is very short-jointed such cuttings are too long to be planted and handled economically. Three-bud cuttings usually give stronger plants the first season because roots start from both joints as a rule. Very strong plants are obtained from mallet cuttings (Fig. 45), but as only one such cutting can be made from a cane, unless the cane bears very strong branches, they are not much used. Various methods of peeling, slitting and slicing cuttings are recommended, in order to extend the callusing process but they are not used in common or commercial practice. The cuttings are tied in bundles of 50 or 100, and stored in sand, moss, or sawdust in a cellar, until spring, when they are planted in rows in the open. Some varieties, of which the Delaware is an example, do not strike readily from cuttings. Some growers start common cuttings of these under glass in spring. Others bury the bundles of cuttings in a warm exposure in the fall, with the butt ends up and about level with the surface of the ground. This affords bottom heat to the butts and induces callusing. At the approach of cold weather the cuttings are removed to a cellar, or are heavily mulched and allowed to remain where buried. Storing is safer. Some growers obtain the same results by burying upside down in a cellar. These slow-rooting sorts often start well if they are simply kept in a warm cellar--but where the buds will not swell--all winter, as the callusing is then hastened. At the end of the first season the plants may be transplanted. The plants are often sold at this age, but buyers usually prefer two-year-old plants.