268 THE NURSERY. [MARCH 



would then be directed to the nourishment of the graft, which is not 

 of as much advantage as might be imagined. 



If the plants which you inarch, are exposed to strong winds, it will 

 be proper to make them fast, either to stakes stuck into the ground 

 for that purpose, or to some other more convenient support to prevent 

 their being displaced thereby. 



The stocks and grafts are to remain for three months, or upwards, 

 before you unbind them ; at the expiration of that time, take off the 

 clay and bandages, and if well taken, separate the graft from the 

 mother plant, being careful to do this with a perfectly sharp knife, 

 cutting it off with a slope downwards to the stock ; and, if not done 

 in grafting, the head of the stock must also be cut off close to the 

 graft, and afterwards the stem kept free from any under shoots. If 

 at this time the graft and stock, particularly if not extremely well 

 united, were tied again gently, as before, fresh clayed, and those suf- 

 fered to remain on for a mouth or five weeks, it would be of consider- 

 able advantage. 



The walnut, fig, and mulberry, with many other trees, which do 

 not succeed by the common methods of grafting, will take freely by 

 this, and also various kinds of evergreens. It is in frequent use to 

 ingraft a fruit-bearing branch upon a common stock of the same 

 family, by which means you have a tree with much fruit in a few 

 months, that would take perhaps as many years, when left to nature, 

 before it would show a single one. This is frequently practised on 

 orange-trees, and other green-house plants. 



This method of grafting is not to be performed so early in the 

 season as the others, it being most successful when the sap is flowing; 

 in the Middle States, I would recommend doing it towards the latter 

 end of April. But it is not to be practised where the other methods 

 will succeed ; for trees propagated in this way are always observed 

 to grow more weakly, and never to the size of those which are pro- 

 pagated by budding, or the other modes of grafting. 



GRAFTING PEACHES, NECTARINES, AND APRICOTS. 



Peaches, nectarines, and apricots will succeed by grafting, but 

 propagating them by inoculation is much preferable ; however, if you 

 graft them, let it be done early, always before they show flowers, 

 having their scions taken off three weeks previous to the time of per- 

 forming the operation, and deposited in the earth till that period, as 

 before directed for those of other fruit-trees, in the choice of which 

 you must be very particular, so as to get the best ripened young 

 wood, round, plump, and short-jointed, and with very little pith; all 

 these will take as freely on plump stocks as on their own kinds, and 

 if intended for walls and espaliers will be more permanent, as they 

 are not so subject to be destroyed by worms. Grafting may be also 

 performed, to any desirable extent, on most kinds of forest and orna- 

 mental trees, such as elm, ash, oak, holly, althea-frutex, &c. &c., 

 whose scions are not soft-wooded, nor too full of pith. 



