BUDDING. 71 



ON THE ART AND USP^FULNESS OF BUDDING. 



As no time is to be lost by those who propose to provide themselves with 

 choice fruit of every sort by this beautiful process, we have decided to devote to 

 it as much space as may be necessary to enable the most inexperienced to pevform 

 the operation. 



The season most appropriate for it, according to English writers, extends to the 

 last of August, but the best American authorities say that budding may be prac- 

 ticed in this country to the middle of September. The simple rule, however, is, 

 that it may be done at any time that, and only when, the sap flows so freely as to 

 admit of the bark being easily separated from the wood of the stock to which the 

 bud is to be attached. 



Budding, we need hardly say, is the art of making the bud unite to the stem 

 or branch of another tree or shrub. Delicate kinds, says Johnson, are strength- 

 ened by being worked, as it is technically termed, upon more robust stocks. 



A bud contains the rudiments of a plant, or of part of a plant, in a latent state, 

 until season and circumstances favor its evolution. A close analogy exists be- 

 tween a bud and a bulb, which is also a reservoir of the vital powers of the plant, 

 during the season when those powers are torpid. Buds consist of scales closely 

 enveloping each other, and enfolding the embryo plant or branch. They resist 

 cold only until they begin to grow ; and hence it is, according to the nature and 

 earliness or lateness of their buds, that plants differ in their powers of bearing a 

 severe or variable climate. By buds, says Smith, as we well know, plants are 

 propagated ; and in that sense each bud is a separate being, or a young plant in 

 itself; but such propagation is only the extension of an individual, and not a re- 

 production of a species, as by a seed. Accordingly, all plants increased by buds, 

 cuttings, layers, or roots, retain precisely the peculiar qualities of the individual 

 to which they owe their origin. If those qualities differ from what are common 

 to the species, sufficient to constitute what is called a variety (as, for instance, 

 the seckle pear, or black tartarian cherry, as distinguished from other pears or 

 cherries), that variety will be perpetuated through all the progeny thus obtained. 

 This fact, says the same writer, is exemplified in a thousand instances, and none 

 more notorious than the different kinds of apples — all which, says he, are varie- 

 ties of the common crab, Pyrvs Mains ; and he fully assents to the opinion of 

 Mr. Knight, that each individual thus propagated, by buds, cuttings, layers, or 

 roots, has only a determinate existence — in some cases longer, in some shorter — 

 and to this cause he attributes the fact that many valuable varieties of apples 

 and pears, known in former times, are now worn out, while others are dwindling 

 away before o\ir eyes. We have a distinct recollection of two or three kinds of 

 apples, and one of pears, on our grandmother's estate in Calvert county, Mary- 

 land, all aromatic and delicious fruits, which we feel confident have become ex- 

 tinct. PTopagation by seedx is therefore recommended by botanists and horticul- 

 turists of the most extensive inquiry and enlarged observation, as the only true 

 reproduction of plants, by which new and valuable varieties may be obtained, 

 each species kept distinct, and all variations effaced ; for though, says the author 

 •we are quoting, new varieties may arise among a great variety of seedling plants, 



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