26 ON GRAFTING THE DAHLIA. 



four inches of leaf mould, or short dung from an old hot bed, 



which protects them from injury by frost, and enriches the soil. 



If, however, severe frosts sets in after the bulbs appear above the 



covering of dung, I protect them with hoops and mats. 



By the above mode of treatment I have flowered the same 



bulbs a second season, with an equally good show of flowers. 



J. Fyffe. 



ARTICLE II. 

 ON GRAFTING THE DAHLIA. 



BY MR. WRIGHT, WALWORTH. 



It happens not 'unfrequently, that the tubers of Dahlias either 

 have no eyes, or the crown has become so hard and woody, that 

 the young shoot cannot force its way through it. Unless the 

 shoots, for example, slipped ofTfrom the tubers in the spring,have 

 attached to their lower extremity a number of incipient buds, 

 indicated by the extremity appearing convex, while the part it 

 was taken from is concave, the new tubers formed during the 

 summer will often be what the gardeners term blind ; for though 

 large and fully formed, they are merely attached to a hollow stem, 

 and will not break the following season. This is prevented by 

 taking care to have the slip taken with a convex extremity, or 

 a piece of the tuber atta^ed. 



When tubers are found to be blind, the eyes or buds of fine 

 sorts, of which the supply is limited, may be advantageously 

 grafted upon them ; picking them out with a grafting kinfe, so 

 as that a small piece of the original tuber remain attached. On 

 the neck of the blind tuber, cut a notch to receive this bud or 

 eye, which is to be inserted so that the base of the bud be ex- 

 actly on a level with the surface of the tuber. It is to be fixed 

 in this position with grafting wax. The grafted tuber is then 

 planted in a pot, kept under a glass, and treated like an ordinary 

 cutting. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the graft bud 

 must not be buried, but left above the surface of the mould in 

 the pot. 



When the plants have been forwarded in any of the modes 

 above described, so as to have healthy stems, they maybe planted 

 out for flowering about the end of May or the beginning of June, 

 but it is better not to be too early ; for one night's frost may do 

 them irreparable injury. C. Wright. 



