18 FRUIT BOOK. 



think it preferable to grafting for nearly all kinds of 

 fruit. The object in budding is the same as in 

 grafting, and depends on the same principle ; all 

 the difference between a bud and a scion is, that a 

 bud is a shoot or scion in embryo. When grafting 

 has been omitted or has failed in spring, budding 

 comes in as an auxiliary in summer. The season 

 for performing this operation upon pears and apples 

 is from the middle of July to the last of August, 

 but upon stone fruits the month of September is 

 early enough to perform this operation ; for when 

 these are budded too early, they are apt to shoot 

 the same year, which shoots, being weakly, are 

 either killed in the winter, or, if they escape the 

 frost, they never make much progress. It is always 

 better that the buds should remain dormant until 

 spring, when they will shoot forth with vigor. The 

 buds used are found in the axillae of the leaf of the 

 present year ; the best buds are those on the middle 

 of a young shoot, not those at the lower end. Stocks 

 for budding may, in general, be much smaller than 

 for grafting, as the operation may be performed on 

 the same year's shoot. The French enumerate 

 twenty-three varieties of budding ; but the variety 

 in general use with us is the following, called shield 

 or T budding. It is thus performed : Select a 

 smooth part of the stock ; then with the budding- 

 knife make a horizontal cut across the bark, quite 

 through to the firm wood ; from the middle of this 

 transverse cut make a slit downwards, an inch or 

 more long, going also quite through to the wood ; 



