CULTURE OF WETTER FLOWERING PLANTS. 131 



The advance of the New York establishments is due, 

 without doubt, to their more rapid manner of propaga- 

 tion. While the Philadelphia florist contents himself with 

 the slow but sure practice of inarching, the New York 

 Camellia-grower is making nearly a do^en plants to his 

 one, by the method, equally safe to him, of grafting. 



The process of inarching the Camellia, or grafting by 

 approach, is usually performed in July, by slicing off a 

 thin portion of the stock and a corresponding portion of 

 the variety to be inarched. The slice pared off should 

 be deep enough to take a portion of the wood off with the 

 bark, and of about two inches in length ; the parts should 

 be so joined that at least one side shall closely meet, and 

 there be tied moderately firm, to keep them in place 

 until they have grown together. 



If done in July, the part inarched may be cut from the 

 parent stem in October. 



Grafting the Camellia, in our opinion, is just as much 

 an improvement over inarching as growing, a grape-vine 

 or rose from a cutting is over the ungardener-like practice 

 of growing it from layers. I am aware that in many hands 

 the grafting of the Camellia has proved a failure, not so much 

 due to anything wrong in the way the mechanical part 

 of the operation was performed as to the wrong time it 

 was done. The best time in our climate to graft the Ca- 

 mellia is from the 15th of August to the 15th of September ; 

 at such times the sap is in just the right condition to form 

 the proper callosity to cause an adherence of the parts. 

 Figure 38 shows the operation, which is of the simplest 

 kind ; the main point to be looked to being the accurate 

 junction of the parts, at one side at least, and careful tying ' 

 up, to keep the graft in place. After the operation, the 

 next point of importance is the place in which the plants 

 are put. It will be understood that the graft is in some 

 respects analogous to a cutting, being a detached part of a 

 plant with nothing to support it as yet, and that the same 



