1856.] Spring Work — Grafting. 135 



the wood is seriously injured by frost; and tliis may be known as soon 

 as the sap begins to flow freely. If branches are removed with the saw, 

 they should be smoothly pared around the line of bark, and covered 

 with wax, or a mixture of gum shellac and alcohol, which may be 

 applied rapidly with a brush. 



GRAFTING. 



Now is the time to select choice fruits, prepare grafts, and begin your 

 grafting. Your grafts being cut and labeled, and their ends inserted in 

 sand, or friable earth, not too moist, get ready your grafting-wax. Be 

 not too sparing, for what is left will, like old wine, be better by age. 



Wax for putting on with the hand, should be made as follows : — 

 Make it of seven parts, or proportionals ; of these, three rosin, three 

 beeswax, and one tallow ; some add two of tallow, making the propor- 

 tionals ei^^ht. I prefer the former number. Pour into water, and work 

 like shoemaker's wax, or molasses candy. If to apply with a brush, 

 and while warm, you may increase the rosin some two or three propor- 

 tionals. In gi'afting the cherry or plum, or the branches of old trees, 

 use a bandage of muslin, wrap in two or three folds, and seal with a 

 small portion of the wax. This will prevent the air and water from 

 entering the cleft upon the cracking of the wax, which often takes place 

 on the first expansion of the graft. This bandage, thus sealed, need not 

 be removed until the next season ; and often the rapid growth of the 

 branch will unseal, and render unnecessary, its removal; and the 

 envelope often protects the graft from being blown out by the wind. 



Commence with 3'our cherry grafting, while the buds of your graft, 

 and the sap of the tree, are yet quiescent. It is almost useless to do it 

 afterward, especially on old trees. An old cherry tree, if thrifty, may 

 be as successfully grafted as an old apple tree, if the proper time and 

 proper manner are observed: in other words, if nature's laws are not 

 violated. 



The cherry, peach, and plum, are the first fruit trees to start in the 

 spring. The formation of the buds of stone-fruits is peculiar. They stand 

 out more prominently than those of seed-fruit, and are attached to the stem 

 by a delicate filaiEent, which, as soon as the sap enters, becomes distended, 

 and being thus indepenilent, to some extent, of the stem, where the bud 

 has started, at the least check of the vegetative process, it withers, and 

 life is at once extinct. If the sap is flowing freely in the tree, and the 

 graft is quiescent, though success is more certain, yet, before it is sup- 

 plied to the graft, or the graft is ready to receive the sap, the sap- 

 vessels of the branch become desiccated, and the graft perishes. 



Insert, if you please, your cherry grafts in February — certainly by 



