212 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 



the bark is readily defcached from the alburnum. The 

 head of the stock is taken off by a single stroke of the 

 knife obliquely." The cion, which should not exceed in 

 diameter half that of the stock, is then divided longi- 

 tudinally, about two inches upward from its lower end, 

 into two unequal divisions. The stronger division of the 

 cion is then pared thin at its lower extremity, and intro- 

 duced, as in crown grafting, between the bark and wood 

 of the stock, and the more slender division is fitted to the 

 stock upon the opposite side. The cion, consequently, 

 stands astride the stock, to which it attaches itself upon 

 each side, as in the more common mode of saddle graft- 

 ing. 



SPLICE AND TONGUE GRAFTING.-- -When the stock and 

 cion are nearly of the same size, splice grafting also 

 called tf wJaip grafting" is the most convenient and cer- 

 tain method known. Seedling stocks are most generally 

 used, and. of various ages, from one to three or more years 

 old, according to their kind and rapidity of growth. The 

 stock is cut off with an upward slope, making the exposed 

 wood perfectly smooth ; a cion two to four inches long is 

 cut off, with the same slope as the stock, and fittec^ to it, 

 being careful to have the wood and bark on one side 

 exactly even. The Difficulty in practising this, mode is 

 in keeping the cion in position while applying the liga- 

 tures, and for this reason it has been almost entirely 

 superseded by 



* TONGUE OR WHIP GRAFTING, which differs from the 

 ordinary splice only in one point, viz.: a small cleft or 

 split is made in both stock and cion, about midway on the 

 slope, forming a tongue on both ; these are then inserted 

 one into the other, which will hold the cion in its place. 

 Figur^ SU shows the operation as completed c, the stock; 

 , the cion ; a, bud on cion the union being formed by 

 what is sometimes called a tongue splice. This mode of 



