46 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 



grafting is that the soil covering the grafted vine or cutting will dry out, 

 in which case failure is assured, while too early grafting will incur the 

 risk of rotting. Some suppose that the scion is "drowned," if grafting 

 is done when the sap is beginning to flow so that the vine " bleeds." 

 This is an error; perhaps some of the most successful grafts are made 

 early. While there is little to be feared from the excess of sap in the 

 vine at grafting, there is much to fear from rains at this time. It is 

 certainly better to take chances from moisture rather than from 

 drought either extreme being bad for the success of the operation. 



It is on account of danger arising from excess of drought or moisture 

 that special care should be given to the "banking" or covering of the 

 grafted vine or cutting. Covering too deeply is almost as bad as 

 insufficient covering. In very moist soils and climates especial care 

 should be given not to bury^ too deeply while when there is a-ny ten- 

 dency to dry out, deep burying is to be advised. There is a limit, of 

 course, even in the driest of climates; if a graft be too deeply buried, 

 the shoots or growth experience very great difficulty in forcing their 

 way to the air and making proper growth. It is for this reason that 

 scions of two buds are preferable to those of one. In the former case 

 the top bud can grow freely, and it is seldom that the second eye, the 

 nearest stock, will develop at all. In very dry, loose soils -it is well, per- 

 haps, to use even three eyes or buds. 



Cutting Off of Roots. It is necessary about July or August, according 

 to locality, to carefully cut away the roots that may have started on 

 the scion. By this time the joint is pretty well formed. The roots that 

 grow on the scion are not, after all, any very great obstacle to the 

 " taking" of the graft, and if their development is, as is well known, 

 inverse to the production of callus, they are in most cases the conse- 

 quence of a slow joining. Their suppression in July or August is too 

 late to materially affect the joining of the scion to the stock, but they 

 must be none the less carefully removed. This is because when the 

 scion is partly nourished by its own roots, and partly by those of the 

 stock, neither the one nor the other plays its proper part in the vegeta- 

 tion of the plant; and as the non-resistant scion is partly interrupted 

 in its communication with the roots of the stock, it tends to draw more 

 freely from its own roots, with which it has uninterrupted communica- 

 tion, than from the stock. The result is that most all the root develop- 

 ment takes place on the non-resistant roots and the resistant stock 

 becomes unduly enfeebled, so that when the phylloxera attacks the roots 

 of the scion, the resistant roots are unable to nourish the large develop- 

 ment of foliage. This, deprived of its nourishment, becomes sickly, and 

 in many cases causes the whole vine to perish. Of course all suckers 

 should be removed as soon as they make their appearance. 



Care to be Given the Grafted Vines. In very cold regions, where there 

 is damage from extreme cold in winter, the grafted vines should be 

 " banked up " at the beginning of winter, and early in spring the soil 

 should be plowed away from them. 



The stock is frequently more feeble than the scion, especially on 

 the Riparia and Solonis; and hence is exposed to the danger of break- 

 ing off from wind, etc. The rupture seldom takes place just at the joint 

 itself, but generally (in the case of a well-grafted vine) just a little below 

 the joint. It is well, then, to " stake" the grafts for a few years. 



