PEOPAGATION AND IMPEOYEMENT. 11 



kind. It is only when the layer or cutting is laid or 

 taken below the graft, that it will be a stock requiring 

 working or grafting. 



The grafts do not entirely overbear the nature of the 

 stock, so that a graft of a kind characterized by fine 

 foliage and vigorous growth, should be used on a stock 

 of similar nature, and vice versa. A slight difference, 

 however, is beneficial in increasing fertility. If stock 

 and graft be too unlike in vigour of growth, temporary 

 success may result, but not the production of good 

 lasting trees. The stock, too, as a general rule, should 

 be of rather earlier vegetation than the scion. The size 

 at which the young stocks may be grafted or budded is 

 the time the stem measures from a quarter of an inch to 

 one inch in diameter, but stems or branches two or three 

 inches or more in diameter are sometimes worked with 

 success. 



Mature trees, that produce inferior fruit, do very 

 well for pruning quite close and grafting again, pro- 

 vided they are in health and vigour of growth, but old, 

 unhealthy, worn-out trees are not worth doing : it is 

 better to root up such and plant young trees in their 

 place. 



Crab stocks are wild fruit trees, their seedlings or 

 suckers, such as the wild crab apple of our hedges, 

 wild pears, wild plums, wild cherries, or in fact the 

 produce of any trees which have not been grafted. 

 They throw their roots deep into the earth, and produce 

 trees which are fitter for orchard than for garden 

 culture. 



Free stocks are produced from seed or layers of 

 cultivated fruit. They partake in some measure of the 

 character of the parent tree, and if the natural fruit be 

 waited for it may prove new or good, but it is generally 

 many years before it comes. 



Paradise, or Doucin stocks are layers or suckers from 

 a dwarf kind of apple, which keeps the roots much 

 nearer the surface than crab stocks, and which is con- 

 sequently much easier to cultivate, manure, and keep 

 in lasting vigour. The French Paradise stock is dis- 



