218 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 



Within a week after the cions are set, the failures, if 

 any, may be seen, as the leaves will drop from the cions 

 if there is no communication between them and the 

 stocks. At the end of two weeks, or a little more, the 

 cions will be united, if at all, and a very reliable indica- 

 tion of this is a new growth on the cions. The plants 

 may then be removed from the house, if necessary, and 

 the pots plunged in frames in the open ground, and given 

 shade and plenty of moisture. But where the propaga- 

 tor has abundant house room, it is best to keep the plants 

 inside for a month or more, and by proper ventilation 

 somewhat harden the new growth Before removing to the 

 outside frames. If the stocks have a good ball of roots 

 they may be slipped out of the pots when transplanted to 

 the outside frames. 



This mode of inside veneer grafting is not only one of 

 the most expeditious and certain methods of propagating 

 nearly all kinds of deciduous and evergreen trees and 

 sjirubs, but it is performed at a season when the expert 

 grafter has the most leisure, if it can be said that such a 

 time ever falls to his lot ; and by having his stocks of 

 various kinds growing in pots, he can graft them at his 

 pleasure, in foul or fair weather, and at the same time be 

 eminently successful in propagating many species of trees 

 that are always uncertain, and seldom or never success- 

 fully grafted in the open air at least not in cold climates. 



Another advantage of grafting in summer is that in 

 taking the cions, the propagator can select those which 

 will best perpetuate any special characteristic like the 

 variegation of leaves in deciduous trees, which become 

 obliterated later in the season. This is a very important 

 matter, for, as is well known, the best marked of the 

 variegated, laciniate and colored leaved trees, are inclined 

 to revert to the original forms, and it is only by proper 

 and timely selections of wood for propagation that these 

 abnormal forms are fixed and perpetuated. By repeated 



