BUDDING. 



in perfect order at a moment's warning ? — his knife of peculiar make, as laid 



down by authority, for budding ; and soft matting for wrapping ; and suitable 

 wax for binding up and healing the wounds of trees budded and grafted, or such 

 as, having their limbs torn off by the wind, require the care of the surgeon ? — 

 Why should he not have always in perfect order his knives adapted also for 

 butchering, and his fleams for bleeding, and his shears for shearing his flocks — 

 just as a dentist or a surgeon has all his tools and instruments in perfect trim? 

 Are farmers to be, in truth and for ever, what the world is prone enough to con- 

 sider them — a poor, spiritless race of drudges, without any of that pride of pro- 

 fession, and esprit du cor/)."!, which animates the followers of other pursuits — the 

 racer, the sportsman, the shipmaster, and the military man — to excel in their 

 knowledge, and preparations, and appointments, and in their readiness to chal- 

 lenge public scrutiny and comparison, each in the line of his calling? But feel- 

 ings of indignation are overcoming and running away with us, as usual, when- 

 ever we think of an American farmer, standing on his own freehold estate — the 

 monarch of all he surveys — being content to drudge, and live on, from hand to 

 mouth, without any of that forecast, neatness, or ambition of excellence and hon- 

 orable distinction, without which he can hardly expect to reach, much less rise 

 above, vulgar mediocrity, and the want of which always marks him a victim and 

 a hobby, to be fleeced and ridden by misers and demagogues ! 



The manner of performing the oper- 

 ation of budding is thus described by the 

 voluminous author whose life and writ- 

 ings were briefly memorialized in our 

 June number. The method he recom- 

 mends, and that which is in general use, 

 and which long experience has proved to 

 be best, is called " T budding,'''' [fig. 2] 

 — so called from the form of two cuts 

 that; 



bebudded- 

 somet 



piece of bark on which the bud is seated, 

 [fig. 3,] being in the shape of a shield 

 when it is prepared to be inserted with- 

 in the T cut in the bark of the stock. — 

 " Scallop budding " is also described by 



Loudon, and M. Thouin describes twenty-three modes, which we 

 mention only to show the reader how much thought and ingenuity 

 have been bestowed on an apparently small matter about which it 

 may happen that he, a free born American republican landholder, in 

 the pride of his position and circumstances, has never spent a thought. 

 For every useful purpose it is deemed, however, sufficient to give the 

 following directions for shield budding. 



With the budding knife make a horizontal cut across the rind, quite 

 through to the firm wood ; from the middle of this cross or transverse 

 cut make a slit perpendicularly downward, an inch or more long, going in this case 

 also quite through the bark into the wood. This is done as shown in fig. 2. Pro- 

 ceed with all expedition to take off a bud, holding the cutting or scion, fig. 4, m 

 one hand, with the thickest, or that which was the lower end, outward, and 

 with the knife in the other hand, enter it about half an inch or more below a bud, 



(169J 



are made in the bark of the stock to ^^ I jJ; 

 udded — or " shield budding,''^ as it is ^v /^j 

 etiraes called, from the form of the PS"];,] ,™ 



