104 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[April, 



tell something about raising Orange and Lemon 

 trees, and wishes I would redeem my promise. 

 She says she and her lady friends followed my 

 instructions for growing the Calla lily with very 

 favorable results, and adds that she is quite suc- 

 cessful in raising seedling Geraniums, but has 

 great difficulty in getting them to flower before 

 they are very large plants. Now, I think this 

 letter ought to have been sent to Mr. Meehan, 

 as all letters of inquiry should be ; but as she 

 says I promised, I must, of course, perform. The 

 first thing to be done is to procure the lemon 

 seed (as both orange and lemon are generally 

 grafted or budded on the lemon stock) ; this can 

 easily be accomplished by saving all the perfect 

 pips they find in the lemons when next they 

 make lemonade ; these should be dried and sown 

 in light sandy soil in a pan or shallow box, and 

 ■when two or three inches in height should be 



Suppose the stock to be one foot high, or as 

 high as your fancy may dictate; with a sharp 

 knife carefully cut the bark and outer wood down 

 as shown in Fig. 1, then prepare the graft as 

 showii in the same figure ; insert the graft in the 

 stock, carefully bringing the edges of the bark 

 together so that the bark of the graft fits the 

 bark of the stock (it is not necessary that the 

 graft fit the stock exactly, if the bark of the graft 

 meet the bark of the stock on one side it is all- 

 sufficient) ; tie them in their pjace as shown in 

 Fig. 2 with some soft tying material, such as 

 cotton strings, matting, &c. After tying them 

 smear the grafted part over with soft clay, 

 shorten the stock back, place it in a glass jar, 

 and stop the mouth up with moss, cotton or soft 

 paper, so as to exclude all air during the time 

 that the union is taking place. Shade the plant, 

 and when the graft has taken, gradually harden 



potted singly in small pots or planted out in the 

 open ground. If the weather be warm, and all 

 danger from frosts be over, these seedlings when 

 as thick as an ordinary lead pencil may be bud- 

 ded with orange or lemon buds in the same way 

 as peach trees, and about the same time of the 

 year — July, August, September. For my own 

 part, I prefer grafting, as it forms a specimen 

 much quicker than the slower process of bud- 

 ding, which causes us to wait until the next sea- 

 son before we can hope to get a growth. The 

 only difficulty in the way of grafting is to keep 

 the stock and gi-aft, or rather that part which is 

 operated upon, in an air-tight chamber during 

 the process, which can be readily done in the 

 following manner : 



it off" by removing the material from the mouth 

 of the jar for two or three hours each day, ex- 

 tending the time until it is thoroughly hardened, 

 but in no case allow the graft to droop from too 

 long exposure. In selecting the grafts be careful 

 to take only such as have plump eyes on the 

 half ripened wood, as the older the wood is the 

 slimmer the chance of success. The orange is 

 generally distinguished from the lemon by its 

 leaf .stalks having wings, as shown in Fig. 4, 

 while the lemon has a plain stalk as shown in Fig. 3. 

 Both plants grow well in almostany rich sandy soil, 

 and when growing require Tin abundance of wa- 

 ter. The pots should be well drained with oyster 

 shells, broken pots, or small stones, and the 



