232 PLANT PROPAGATION 



to use a warm room, stocks, cions and finished grafts 



should be kept covered with damp rags or burlap. 



302. Grafting knives (Fig. 188) may be of any thin- 



bladed, sharp-edged style; at least for whip graft work. 



For herbaceous and other delicate grafting a budding 



knife will answer. It is too light for most other methods. 



The knives popular in nursery practice have fixed wooden 



blades and cost about $2.50 a dozen. 



303. Whole-root grafts. - 

 When roots of seedling trees 

 are used for grafting, just as 

 they come from the soil, except 

 perhaps for trimming and slight 

 shortening, the resulting trees 

 are said to be "whole-root 

 grafts." To make such trees the 



FIG. 189 TONGUE GRAFTING r, t j , ,, 



graft is placed at the crown, so 



How to hold knife. r 



the term root graft is erro- 

 neously used, the proper term 



being "crown graft." The roots are by no means 

 "whole"; first, because a good deal has unavoidably been 

 left in the ground when the seedling was dug, and second, 

 because the roots must be shortened so the finished graft 

 will not exceed nine inches and thus be too long for best 

 handling in the nursery. The seedling roots are either 

 single tap-roots four to six inches long, or shorter where 

 several branches occur near the crown. Usually the lat- 

 eral roots are cut off close to the main root, otherwise the 

 grafts are difficult to make and to handle both in bundling 

 and in planting. 



304. Piece-root grafts are made from cions six or seven 

 inches long and bits of root only three or two inches long. 

 First grade, or number one, apple seedlings often make 

 three and sometimes four pieces, though the average would 

 probably be not more than 250 piece stocks to the 100 

 roots as bought. Number two seedlings will rarely reach 

 150 pieces to the 100 roots. When stock is costly or 



