192 AGRONOMY 



and a similar piece of bark with a bud from another plant is 

 fitted in. This method is most frequently used in budding 

 thick-barked trees such as hickory and magnolia, the work 

 being performed in early spring. Prong budding is really a 

 form of grafting in which a short twig is treated as a bud. 



Grafting. Grafting is in many respects like budding, since 

 it consists in transferring a part of one plant to another, but 

 in the present case a small twig, called a don, or graft, is used 

 instead of a bud. The cions are collected and stored in autumn, 

 exactly like hardwood cuttings, and the only practical differ- 

 ence between them is that the cutting is designed to draw 

 part of its nourishment from the soil through its own roots, 

 while the cion is intended to become a part of another plant 

 with no roots of its own. The essential thing in all grafting 

 is to see that the cambium of stock and cion meet, and that 

 the point where they join is protected by grafting wax until 

 the two have grown together. Grafting must be done in late 

 winter or early spring while both stock and cion are dormant. 

 As in budding, cion and stock must be from nearly allied 

 species. Sour apples or pears may grow on sweet-apple stock 

 and peaches on plum stock, but widely separated species can 

 seldom, if ever, be made to unite. A single tree may be made 

 to bear half a hundred different varieties of apples by graft- 

 ing, and each will come true to its nature. In species with 

 dioecious flowers grafting may be employed to make sterile 

 forms fertile. 



Different forms of grafting. Two principal forms of grafting 

 may be distinguished : cleft grafting used in working over old 

 trees ; and whip grafting, the method commonly employed with 

 small or young stock. In cleft grafting, a branch about two 

 inches thick is sawed off, the stump is split with a chisel or 

 knife, and the base of the cion, cut to slender wedge shape, 

 is inserted in the cleft. Usually two cions are used, one on 

 each side of the cleft, and to insure that the cambiums of 



