234 



AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



TONGUE GRAFTING. 

 Fig. 116. 



a. The stock prepared for tongue grafting. 

 6. The graft prepared for tongue grafting. 



c. The graft set, or graft and stock interlocked. 



d. The graft set and bound, ready for covering with grafting mortar or composition. 



e. A length of a one-year-old seedling root tongue grafted and wrapped with tow, 



and ready for planting. 



TONGUE GRAFTING is not so simple as cleft or crown graft- 

 ing, neither is it any more successful, but it is much better 

 suited to very young stocks, from a quarter to three quarters of 

 an inch diameter, and is sometimes preferred on account of the 

 greater delicacy of handling which it requires, and the prompt- 

 itude and neatness with which it usually heals over. 



It is performed in the following manner: the stock being 

 cut off to a clear spot with a sloping cut, a slice or tongue 

 of wood is cut from one side, one or two inches long, to the 

 depth of from one to two thirds the diameter of the stock to be 

 grafted, leaving it, except in the greater length of the cut, 

 much like the mouth-piece of a hunter's whistle. The knife 

 is then turned edge downward, and being gradually entered 

 upon the face of this cut, about one third down, a thin tongue 

 or apron, of less than an inch in length, is carefully formed, Fig. 

 116 a. The graft is then cut of a length to match with the 



