20 FRUIT BOOK. 



GRAFTING. 



The origin of grafting is lost in the obscurity of 

 antiquity. The art was carried to a great extent 

 in Italy about the time of the Christian era. The 

 varieties best known, and most generally in use, 

 are whip or tongue grafting, side or bark graft- 

 ing, cleft grafting, and saddle grafting. The 

 French have, with their usual faculty of inven- 

 tion, enlarged this number to a great extent. 

 Professor Thorn has described above forty meth- 

 ods of grafting. Inarching, or grafting by ap- 

 proach, is another modification of this art. In 

 the spring of 1840, we restored a dwarf pear tree, 

 which was nearly or quite dead, from the root to 

 three inches above the ground, by planting around 

 it four or five seedling pear stocks, and inarching 

 their tops into the living bark eight inches above 

 the surface of the ground. In the following fall, 

 this tree bore nearly half a peck of the green 

 sugar pear. The cleft or stock grafting is the 

 most generally practised in this country ; and 

 the whip or tongue grafting is the mode in use 

 in the best fruit-tree nurseries in England. 

 The former method is performed in the following 

 manner : The head of the stock or branch be- 

 ing cut off, a slit is made in the top deep enough 

 to receive the scion, which should be cut sloping, 

 like a wedge, so as to fit the slit made in the 

 stock. Care must be taken, that the side of the 

 wedge which is to be placed outward be thicker 

 than the other ; and in placing the scion into the 

 slit, it must be so adjusted that the rind of the 

 scion join that of the stock : the whole should then 

 be clayed, or covered with grafting wax, to keep 



