255 

 BUDDING AND GRAFTING FRUIT TREES. 



Budding and Grafting, Lindley observes, are operations 

 that equally depend for their success upon the property that 

 buds possess of shooting roots downwards and stems up- 

 wards ; but in these practices, the roots strike between the 

 bark and wood of the stock, instead of into the earth, and 

 form new layers of wood, instead of subterranean fibres. 

 The success of such practices, however, depends upon other 

 causes than those which influence the growth of cuttings- 

 It is necessary that an adhesion should take place between 

 the scion and the stoek, so that when the descending fibres 

 of the buds shall have fixed themselves upon the wood of 

 the stock, they may not be liable to subsequent separation 

 No one can have studied the economy of the vegetable 

 kingdom, without having remarked that there is a strong 

 tendency to cohesion in bodies or parts that are placed in 

 contact with each other. 



BUDDING, OR INOCULATING. 



To bud trees, let the following method be adopted : pro- 

 cure a knife which has a thin blade, and a sharp ivory 

 handle ; the use of the blade is to prepare the buds, and the 

 handle is used to raise the bark of the stocks, so that the 

 buds can be easily inserted. Have some good strong bass 

 in readiness, and then take some good thrifty sprigs from 

 healthy trees of the sorts you intend to propagate. When 

 all is ready, make a cut in the bark of the stock transversely, 

 and from the middle of this cut make another downwards, 

 at least two inches in length, so that the two cuts may be in 

 the form of a T; then take one of your sprigs, and with ex- 

 pedition proceed to take off a bud : this is effected by enter- 

 ing the knife a little more than half an inch below the bud 

 or eye ; force your knife into the wood, drawing it under the 

 bud, and cut the piece" off across the shoot ; then imme- 

 diately let that part of the wood which was cut off with the 

 bud, be separated from it, which may be readily done with 



