PROPAGATION OF FRUlT PLANTS. 153 



start and the same care should be taken in the use of wax 

 around the graft as if the night cap were not used. 



The following notes on grafting different fruits will perhaps 

 be of interest: 



Grafting apples. Top-working and crown-grafting of apples 

 in the open ground should be done about the time the buds 

 are nicely started, but the cions should not have started at all. 

 It is perhaps the easiest of all the fruits to graft, and almost 

 any method may be employed on it. The cions should be from 

 four to six inches long. 



Top-working. By top-working is meant the grafting or bud- 

 ding of a tree after it is of some considerable size. The term 

 is used to distinguish such trees from those that are root-grafted. 

 It is here recommended for severe locations and for somewhat 

 tender kinds, such as the Wealthy in Central Minnesota, which, 

 besides being somewhat tender and liable to sun-scald, is weak 

 in the stem and crotches. 



If this variety is grafted on the branches of the Hibernal, 

 which is a very hardy sort with strong crotches, a tree is form- 

 ed that has much of the hardiness of that variety but at the 

 same time bears Wealthy apples. By this method we may in- 

 crease the hardiness of trees to a considerable degree. Some 

 varieties seem to be better adapted to one stock than to an- 

 other. The Hibernal is a stock that is hardy in every particu- 

 lar and especially desirable for top-working. It grows rapidly, 

 makes a large tree and will keep up in rapidity of growth with 

 any of our larger apples. Most of the larger growing crabs 

 make good stocks for top-working. The Transcendent Crab 

 may be successfully used for this purpose. When it is intended 

 to grow an orchard by this method the stocks should be set in 

 the spring, to be budded the following August or to be grafted 

 the following spring. If to be budded the buds should be inserted 

 in about the same positions in the head of the tree as the grafts. 



Grafting the Plum. The plum is most successfully grafted 

 very early in the spring even before the frost is out of the 

 ground or a bud has commenced to swell. When done at this 

 time the work is generally successful, though not as certain as 

 the apple. It is said that the plum may be grafted very sue- 



