THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



HORTICULTURE 



JUNE, 1838. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. J^otice of the grafting of Evergreen Trees ^ as practis- 

 ed in Europe. By A. J. Downing, Botanic Garden and 

 Nurseries, Newburgh, N. Y. 



The operation of grafting upon deciduous trees, which lose 

 their leaves at the approach of frost, and which are submitted to 

 this process before or upon the commencement of vegetation in 

 the spring, is sufficiently familiar to all horticulturists. Applied 

 to evergreen trees, however, the ordinary methods of grafting 

 have failed almost entirely, owing to the difference in organiza- 

 tion and growth between these two distinct natural divisions of 

 vegetation. 



Failing in the ordinary methods, recourse has been had, on 

 the continent of Europe, to a kind of herbaceous grafting, which is 

 performed when the young wood is yet in a tender and succulent 

 state. From the following account of this method, which we ex- 

 tract from that splendid work, the Arboretum Britannicum, of 

 Loudon, now publishing, it will be perceived that it has been 

 practised abroad, not only as a matter of experiment and connois- 

 sieurship, but upon a large scale, in altering the character of 

 whole forests. Perhaps some of your readers, who have an abun- 

 dance of the more common species of the pine genus, as the 

 white and yellow pines, may be induced, by its perusal, to put it 

 in practice, by engrafting some of the rarer foreign species on 

 these native sorts. The magnificent species of pine discovered 

 by Douglas, on the north-west coast of America, which are yet 

 extremely rare here, might undoubtedly be extensively propagat- 

 ed here in this way. 



VOL. IV. — NO. VI. 26 



