7 8 



THE NURSERY-BOOK. 



older wood may be used. In the grafting of peaches which is 

 very rarely done the best cions are supposed to be those which 

 bear a small portion of two-year-old at the 

 lower end. This portion of old wood probably 

 serves no other purpose than a mechanical one, 

 as the recent wood is soft and pithy. It is a 

 common opinion that cions are worthless if cut 

 during freezing weather, but this is unfounded. 

 The cions are stored in sand, moss or sawdust 

 in a cool cellar, or they may be buried in a 

 sandy place. Or sometimes, when a few are 

 wanted for top-grafting, they are thrust into 

 the ground beside the tree into which they are 

 to be set the following spring. Only well- 

 formed and mature buds should be used. Some- 

 times flower-buds are inserted for the purpose 

 of fruiting a new or rare variety the following 

 year. 



In common root-grafting in the east and 

 south, the cion bears about three buds, and the 

 root is about the same length, or perhaps 

 shorter. The variable and unknown character 

 of these roots as regards hardiness, renders it 

 important in very severe climates that roots 

 should be obtained from the same plant as the 

 cion, the hardiness of which is known. It is, 

 therefore, the practice in the prairie countries 

 to use a very long cion eight inches to a foot 

 and to set it in the ground to the top bud. The 

 piece of root serves as a temporary support, and 

 roots are emitted along the cion. When the 

 tree is ready for sale the old piece of root is often removed , or 

 sometimes it falls away of itself. In this manner own-rooted 

 trees are obtained, and it is for this reason that root-grafting is 

 more universally practiced west of the Great Lakes than bud- 

 ding. Even cions of ordinary length often emit roots, as seen 

 in Fig. 72, but the cions are not long enough to reach into uni- 



Fig. 71. Root- 

 graft. 



