1873] GRAFTING VINES. 221 



GRAFTING VIK'ES. 



I, AS also, I have no doubt, many of your readers, felt interested in the 

 article describing Dovetail Grafting, in the April number of the 

 ' Gardener.' I confess that to me it was new, but doubtless among 

 the craft there are various modes of performing the operation of graft- 

 ing, and it is most natural that the mode which one has found to be 

 the most successful is that which one is partial too. I may describe 

 a mode of grafting the Vine which I have adopted for several years, 

 without, I may say, a single failure, and for want of a better way of 

 describing it, I shall name it Tongue-and-wedge Grafting. The oper- 

 ation is performed thus : a young rod is run up from an established Vine, 

 the nearer the root the better (as in the course of two or three years 

 at the most this rod will be substituted for its predecessor) ; the 

 following spring the particular variety to be worked upon the Vine is 

 taken, and with the knife a thin slice of the bark and wood is taken 

 off the graft on the side to be fitted into the rod, and the graft is pre- 

 pared to fit into the tongue or wedge an inch or two below the top- 

 most bud, and the operation is completed by being bandaged and clayed, 

 with a little damp moss put round it in the usual way. I have pre- 

 ferred that the stock should be in advance of the graft. After growth 

 takes place the top is pinched out of the shoot issuing from the top- 

 most bud on the stock ; this has the effect of concentrating the force 

 of the sap into the graft, and when the latter makes a growth of 6 

 inches the top that was pinched is now broken off; the graft will now 

 grow vigorously ; so much is this the case, that it produces fruit the 

 following season. I do not know of a better way of renovating old 

 Vines whose roots have been got into a healthy working condition : 

 by this means I have new and improved varieties introduced without 

 being obliged to have recourse to the clearing out of old Vines.. I 

 now give the names of a few varieties that have been treated in the 

 way above described. 



A Muscat of Alexandria upon a Sweet Water stock ; and in connec- 

 tion with this particular variety it may be interesting to mention 

 that the second year after the grafting was performed, a number of 

 the lowest buds remained dormant, although quite plump, and one would 

 have thought every bud would have produced a shoot (the flow of the 

 sap being so great to the growing point is the only cause that I could 

 assign), until below, on the original stock, a shoot of Sweet Water made 

 its appearance ; it was allowed to remain, pinched back, however, to the 

 fifth bud, the consequence being that the buds which remained dor- 

 mant burst the season following into moderately vigorous shoots, so 

 that the rod from top to bottom has now spurs at regular intervals, 

 and equally fruitful. The second variety that I shall mention is Mus- 



