38 PROPAGATION OF FRUITS. 



The stock (the next spring as the buds begin to 

 unfold, up to the time the leaves are half-grown) 

 should be cut off to within two or three inches of 

 the bud, and, when the bud has grown up some 

 inches and inclines from the stock, tie it to the 

 stump. All sprouts must be kept off, and in the 

 early part of July, in this latitude, cut off the 

 stump even with the budded stock or sprout that 

 has grown up, as at a. See cut. 



PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 



In gardening, the term Grafting {G-reffer, Fr.) signifies the 

 taking a shoot from one tree and inserting it into another, so 

 that they may closely unite and become one trunk — the graft 

 bearing its own fruit, being sustained and nourished by the 

 sap of the stock or tree into which it has been inserted. When 

 thus united, the shoot, branch, or scion, determines the kind of 

 fruit. 



Grafting has been practiced from the most remote antiquity ; 

 but its origin and invention are differently related by natu- 

 ralists. The great aim of this useful art is, to propagate val- 

 uable and curious sorts of fruit trees ; to insure the growth of 

 similar kinds, which cannot be effected by any other method : 

 for, as all the good species of fruit have been accidentally ob- 

 tained from seeds, many of these, wh(^n sown, will degenerate 

 and produce bad fruit. But when shoots are taken from such 

 trees as bear good fruit, they will never change their kind, 

 whatever be their stock or the tree on which they are grafted. 



Mr. Bradley observes, "that the stock grafted on is only to 

 be considered as a fund of vegetable matter which is to be 

 filtered through the scion, digested, and brought to maturity, 

 as the time of growth in the vessels of the scion directs." A 

 scion, therefore, of one kind grafted on the tree of another 

 may be rather said to take root in the tree on which it is 

 grafted, than to unite with it; for it is obvious that the scion 

 preserves its natural purity, though it be nourished and fed 

 by a mere crab. 



