GRAFTING. 
ing trees that have a soft and delicate bark, fine moss and cotton 
wool tied on with ligatures of bast mat, are better than anything else, 
and they are generally quite sufficient for every purpose in which 
grafting is employed by ladies. A new composition has been lately 
invented, made with caoutchouc, which is said to be very efficacious, 
but I have never seen it tried. 
The essential points to be attended to in grafting are—choosing a 
stock and a scion that correspond in nature and in habits of growth; 
cutting the parts to be united so as to fit exactly, and leave no vacuity 
between ; taking care that the soft wood of the scion shall always 
rest on the soft wood of the stock, as it is between these parts that the 
union is to be effected ; binding the parts closely together, and cover- 
ing them so as to prevent them from becoming so dry as to shrink 
apart, in which case the vessels would wither and become incapable 
of uniting. 
Uses of Grafting and Budding.—The obvious use of grafting is to 
propagate varieties that cannot so easily be continued by seed, aad 
that will not strike by cuttings. There is, however, another use 
nearly as important; and this is to make plants flower and feuit 
sooner than they would otherwise do. ‘There are many plants that 
only flower at the extremity of their shoots; and these plants, when 
tender, would require enormous plant-houses before they would be 
thrown into flower or fruit. To remedy this inconvenience, a me- 
thod has been devised of cutting off the tips of the shoots and graft- 
ing them ; and then, after they have grown for some time, cutting off 
the tips again and regrafting them, by means of which flowers are 
at length produced on plants of quite a small size. The same me- 
thod is applied in Paris to exotic fruit-trees, to throw them into fruit; 
and it has been tried with success with the rose-apple (Eugenia Jam- 
bos), the mango, &e. In common nurseries, the fruit of new seed- 
ling apples is obtained much sooner by grafting their shoots on com- 
mon apple stocks, than by leaving the young plants to nature; and 
this plan is also practised at Brussels by Prof. Van Mons, to test 
his seedling-pears. ’ 
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