of propagation is often practised successfully with GUI rants, Goose 

 berries, and Raspberries. 



GRAFTING. 



This is a method most generally adopted in the propagation of fruit^ 

 trees, and more especially those having pips, such as the Apple, Pear, 

 and Orange. Grafting has been practised from a remote period of the 

 world's history, and its value was well known to the ancient Greeks and 

 Romans, according to some of their historians. By grafting, the 

 cultivator is enabled to establish a particular kind of fruit upon a plant 

 of another variety. The theory of grafting is based upon the power of 

 union between the young tissues of the stock or rooted plant and the 

 scion or branch that is worked upon it. When these parts are in 

 perfect contact, the ascending sap of the stock passes into the scion, and 

 this is excited into activity and a perfect union is formed. It must 

 be understood, however, that the union does not extend over the whole 

 surfaces of the cut stocks and scions, but only at the points where the 

 sap exudes between the wood and the inner bark. Consequently, 

 the success of the operation of grafting depends upon the smoothness of 

 the cut portions of stock and scion and the accuracy of the joining. 

 There must be an exact meeting of the inner barks of the two, or 

 otherwise the union will not be perfected, and the scion will die. 

 Grafting is confined within certain limits, and can only be usefully 

 employed between plants that are allied, and which have a similarity in 

 structure. As a rule, trees cannot be grafted successfully out of the 

 natural order to which they belong, and the closer the affinity between 

 stocks and scions the more perfect will the unions be. 



The Uses of Grafting The fruit cultivator obtains advantages in 

 various ways from the practice of grafting. In the first place, it enables 

 him to perpetuate particular varieties readily which are slow to 

 propagate by cuttings or layers, and cannot be raised with certainty 

 from seed ; secondly, it enables him to work choice but delicate 

 varieties upon more robust stocks than their own, and consequently to 

 obtain better returns; thirdly, it allows the cultivator to improve old- 

 established trees of inferior varieties by working better sorts upon them ; 

 fourthly, it enables the grower, as in the case of blight-proof Apples, 

 to utilize particular stocks that are obnoxious to insects or fungi ; 

 fifthly, grafting enables the grower to obtain dwarf trees, as in the 

 case of Apples worked upon the Paradise or Doucin, and the Pear upon 

 Quince stocks ; sixthly, by means of grafting the cultivator can hasten 

 the bearing of trees and test seedling varieties quickly, which otherwise 

 would not bear for a number of years. 



Modes of Grafting. There are a great number of ways in which 

 grafting may be effected, but the same principle applies to each one. 

 The variety of methods is due mainly to the differences in the sizes and 

 ages of the stocks, and no practically useful purpose would be served by 

 describing all the modes of grafting that are practised, as in many cases 



