MAKING AND USING GRAFTING WAX 75 



Enough trees are dug at once to graft at a sitting. The grafting can 

 be done at the work bench in the tool-house or barn, and if one is 

 pressed with other daylight work, it may be done by lamplight at the 

 kitchen table, if the housewife can be conciliated for the muss it will 

 make. 



Care of Scions. The scions should be previously selected, and 

 whether taken from trees on the place or brought from near or dis- 

 tant sources away from the farm, should have been placed a's soon 

 as procured in moist earth on the north side of the house or other 

 building, where they will keep cool and damp until one is ready to 

 use them. In parts of this State where the ground is apt to freeze, it 

 is necessary to keep scions in the cellar with their butts covered with 

 moist sand, but over most of the area of California nothing more is 

 needed than to put them down in earth at the base of a tree or on the 

 north side of a building, with, perhaps, a box or barrel inverted over 

 them to keep out mice and other intruders. Care must be taken not 

 to let them dry up. If it is desirable for any reason to keep scions 

 dormant long into the spring or summer, of course storage in a cool 

 cellar is better, for even in ground the scions will burst into leaf 

 after a warm spell of spring weather unless they are wholly buried 

 some depth in the ground which will greatly prolong dormancy. A 

 place must of course be selected where no water will stand in the 

 soil. 



In selecting wood for scions, as for bud sticks, never take water 

 shoots or suckers that start from the body of the tree and push up 

 through the older branches, but always give the preference to sound, 

 fully-matured wood, from the lower or nearly horizontal branches. 

 Careful experiments have shown that trees grown from such scions 

 are more likely to take on a low, spreading habit than those from the 

 central or upper branches. The scions should be tied in bundles 

 with a stout cord ; and a piece of shingle, with the name of the variety 

 written plainly and deeply thereon, should be tied in with each 

 bundle. 



Grafting Wax. In grafting, a wood grafting wax is a requisite. 

 The ingredients are mixed in different proportions by different 

 growers. A few recipes which are known to give good results are 

 as follows : 



Two Ibs. resin; 1 Ib. beeswax, 1 quart linseed oil; 4 tablespoonfuls tur- 

 pentine. 



One Ib. beeswax; 5 Ibs. resin; 1 pint linseed oil; 1 oz. lampblack. 



One Ib. beeswax; 5 Ibs. resin; 1 pint linseed oil; 1 pint flour the flour 

 stirred in after the other ingredients have boiled together and cooled some- 

 what. 



All these mixtures are made with the aid of gentle heat, and 

 during grafting the wax must be kept warm enough to apply easily 

 with a small brush. To do this a heater can be made by removing 

 the top of a five-gallon oil can or a blasting powder can and making 

 a hole for draft in one side near the bottom. A slow fire can be kept 

 going to heat the wax-pot which is suspended from a rod across the 



