THE PARLOR GARDENER. 83 



quite full of flower buds ready to bloom, to a 

 seedling stock a year or eighteen months old. 

 The graft should be of a diameter nearly equal 

 to that of the stock ; it will take directly. The 

 course of the sap is not sensibly interrupted, and 

 the buds will open as if they had remained upon 

 the shrub from which they were detached. In 

 all cases, the entire stock above the graft should 

 be removed, so that the portion of the stock be- 

 low the graft shall form merely the lower part of 

 the trunk of the tree, whilst all above shall be 

 formed from the graft exclusively. If this sort 

 of grafting, named by the French gardeners graft- 

 ing h la pontoise, were conducted in the open air, 

 the evaporation from the leaves would kill the 

 graft before it took. It can succeed only when 

 excluded from contact with the air. Your orange 

 trees grafted in this manner will be perfectly 

 sheltered under the glass of your portable green- 

 house ; which you must take care to keep close 

 shut, until your grafts, by continuing to grow, 

 give you assurance that they have taken. 



