258 



GRAFTING BY DETACHED SCIONS. 



with a coarse woollen thread, and a cap of paper is put over the 

 whole to protect it from the sun and rain. At the end of fifteen days 

 this cap is removed, and the ligature at the end of a month ; at that 

 time also the two pairs of leaves () which have served as nurses are 

 removed. The scions of those sorts of pines which make two growths 

 in a season, or, as the technical phrase is, have a second sap, produce 

 a shoot of five or six inches the first year ; but those of only one sap, 

 as the Corsican pine, Weymouth pine, &c., merely ripen the wood 

 grown before grafting, and form a strong terminating bud, which in 

 the following year produces a shoot of fifteen inches or two feet. 



We have described this mode of grafting at greater length than we 

 otherwise should have done, because it is little known in this country, 

 and because we think it ought to be adopted in a great many cases 

 for the multiplication of plants now propagated with difficulty by 

 cuttings, or reared, after being so propagated, so slowly as to exhaust 

 the patience of the propagator or amateur. For example, though the 

 pine and fir tribe may all be increased by cuttings, yet these cut- 

 tings grow very slowly, and though they ultimately become good plants, 

 many kinds as much so as if they had been raised from seeds yet if 

 the kinds to be propagated had been grafted on the points of the bud- 

 ding shoots of pines or firs of five or six years' growth, they would 



have grown with incomparably 

 greater rapidity and vigour, 

 and would have become trees 

 of twenty feet in length, before 

 cuttings had attained the height 

 of three feet. 



Grafting the Tree-peony on 

 the roots of the herbaceous 

 species is performed from the 

 middle of July to the middle 

 of August, and will be easily 

 understood from fig. 215, in 

 which a represents a triangular 

 space in the tuber or stock ; 

 5, the scion, the lower end of 

 which is cut so as to fit the 

 cavity in the stock ; and c, the 

 scion fitted to the stock. It 

 is not necessary that there 

 should be more than one bud 

 on the scion, for which reason 

 the upper part of b might have 

 The graft being tied with bast, 



Fig. 215. 



Grafting the Tree-peony on the tubers of tht 

 herbaceous peony. 



been inserted in a, in the cleft manner. 



and covered with grafting-wax, the whole is inserted into a bed of tan, 

 leaving only about half an inch of the scion above the surface. The 

 tubers throw out roots by the end of September or the beginning of 

 October, and are then taken up and potted, and placed in a cold frame, 

 where they remain through the winter. 



