116 



BOTANY 



adventitious buds which have not developed, and have been over- 

 grown with the wood of the tree. 



Budding. — We have said a bud is a promise of a branch ; it may be more, 

 the promise of a new tree. If the owner of an apple tree or peach tree 

 wishes to vary the quahty of fruit borne by the tree he may in the early fall 

 cut a T-shaped incision in the bark and then insert a bud surrounded with 

 a little bark from the tree bearing the desired fruit,* The bud is bound in 

 place and left over the winter. When a shoot from the imbedded bud grows 

 out the following spring it is found to have all the charac- 

 ters of the tree from which it was taken. This process is 

 known as budding. 



Grafting. — Of much the same nature is grafting. Here, 

 however, a small portion of the stem of the closely allied tree 

 is fastened into the trunk of the growing tree in such a man- 

 ner that the two cut cambium layers will coincide. This will 

 allow of the passage of food into the grafted part and insure 

 the ultimate growth of the twig. Grafting and budding are 

 of considerable economic value to the fruit grower, as it en- 

 ables him to produce at will trees bearing choice varieties 

 of fruit. Over fifty methods of grafting are described in 

 agricultural books. Those more successfully used are the 

 cleft graft and the so-called whip graft .^ 

 Forestry. — The American forests have long been our pride. Not only 

 do they form the source of a very great industry, but what is still more vitcl 

 to us, they protect the source of much of our water supply. They also 

 serve as a protection against wind, floods, and moving sands. In Germany, 

 especially, this relation of forest to water supply has been for a long time 

 recognized, and the German forester or caretaker of the forests is well known. 

 In some parts of central Europe the value of the forests was recognized 

 as early as the year 1300 a.d., and many towns consequently bought up the 

 surrounding forests. The city of Zurich has owned forests in its vicinity 

 for at least 600 years. In this country only recently has the importance 

 of preserving and caring for our forests been noted by our government. 

 Now, however, we have a Division of Forestry of the Department of the 

 Interior ; and this and numerous state and university schools of forestry are 

 rapidly teaching the people of this country the best methods for the preser- 

 vation of our forests. The Federal Government has set aside a number of 

 tracts of mountain forest in some of the Western states, some forty reserves 

 in all, making a total area of almost twice the size of the state of Pennsyl- 

 vania. New York has established for the same purpose the Adirondack 



^ This bud should be taken from a tree of the same species. 



^ For full directions for budding and grafting, see Hodge, Nattire Study and Life, 

 pages 169-179, or Goff and Mayne, First Principles of Agriculture, Chap. XIX. 



A cleft graft. 



