210 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



make a preparation to put around a graft, to keep the weather 

 from it, through which the sap will not run, if the tree has 

 any vigor to it that will keep it alive, and make the bark look 

 black around the limb. If you have a preparation to apply 

 to the place where you cut your limb off, you have got to 

 destroy the life of the wood somewhat. Now, sir, oil, or any 

 preparation of grease of any kind is injurious to live wood. 

 There is no man here who will not say that any kind of oil or 

 grease is injurious. Your preparation for grafting is made of 

 beeswax, tallow and rosin, and when the hot weather comes, 

 it is exposed to the sun, and the bark around the top of the 

 stub in which you set your graft the next year will be partially 

 dead, and it will scale off like the bark on the butt of the 

 tree. I have seen hundreds of thousands of stocks in the 

 same way. I have followed this for years, and most of my 

 grafting has been done in the neighborhood of West New- 

 bury, Avhere they raise as much fruit as anywhere, and I say 

 no man can put anything upon live wood that will stop the 

 flowing of sap, unless he puts on clay to absorb it. That is 

 what you have got to do. Clay with hair mixed with it will 

 take up the sap pretty well. Rub it right on, and the sap 

 that comes out is absorbed. I can get more growth in one 

 year from grafted trees by the use of clay than you can get in 

 two by the use of wax. I used wax for years before I found 

 out that it was a mistake to use it, and that I had better use 

 clay. I was up in Brentwood about fi fortnight or three 

 weeks ago, and a man showed me an apple-tree that he had 

 pruned some two years ago, and he said it bled, and he applied 

 red paint to it. I took out my knife and scraped the bark 

 right off where the paint had killed it. You will see, if you 

 look around among the orchards, that some men apply red 

 paint after pruning, or, if they happen to have white paint, 

 they will put that on. It is injurious to live wood, anywhere 

 and everywhere. 



Mr. Hills. I rise simply to say that I do not wish to be 

 responsible for anything that I have not said. I have not 

 advocated the use of wax, or paint, or anything of the kind, 

 to the wound on a tree. I do not know w^hether the gentle- 

 man intended his remarks for me or not. The preparation I 

 recommended was a preparation of gum-shellac and alcohol, 



