33 





them would bear as good fruit as the Mcintosh, althoug-h it is just 

 possible that even better fruit might be produced. Some day you may 



find this an interesting thing 

 to investigate." 



" But what do you mean 

 by budding and grafting ? " 

 inquired Fred. "These," I 

 replied, "are methods ad- 

 opted by nurserymen who 

 make a business of growing 

 trees, whereby they can grow 

 any number of trees that 

 will bear the same kind of 

 fruit, without varying, as 

 they naturally would if the 

 trees were grown from seed. 

 These methods of propagat- 

 ing trees depend upon the 

 fact that every perfect bud 

 on a tree is capable, under 

 favorable conditions, of pro- 

 ducing another branch ; or 

 indeed, a whole tree of the 

 same kind as that on which 

 it grew. 



"The Mcintosh in our 

 garden is a budded tree, which was obtained from Mr. Smith's nursery, 

 where he grows thousands of other trees just like it. In growing these 

 trees, Mr^ Smith had in long rows in the nursery, thousands of little 

 seedling apple trees (that is, little trees grown from apple seeds), which, 

 if allowed to grow naturally would, he knew, bear a great variety of 

 mostly inferior fruit, 



but he had heard of ^^^^ rT r. ^ ii/?M^ 



the excellence of the 

 Mcintosh apple, 

 and intended to 

 make them all bear 

 Mcintosh apples ; 

 so he wrote to Mr. 

 Mcintosh and got 

 him to send all the 

 young shoots he 

 could spare from his 

 Mcintosh tree. 

 From these shoots, 

 which were ob- 

 tained in July, Mr. Smith's men budded the little seedling trees in the 

 nursery rows'. The bark on each little tree was cut open near the 

 ground, and one Mcintosh bud was put in and bound firmly in place. 



i-i" 



A yimipre in tin- nui-^ery. 



Fig. 69. Budding the seedlings. 



