BUDDING. AYRSHIRE COWS. 75 



Having thus gone through with a process so light, and so interesting in its 

 nature and results, that every schoolmaster might and ought to teach it, were it 

 only for amusement at play-lime, in the country schools, and even to the girls who 

 are to make housewives, as well as to boys who are to be their husbandmen ; we 

 have only to copy what wc find in the books, and what is the result of ample 

 experience as to the future trcatnieiU. 



In about two weeks after the operation it will be seen, by the roundness and 

 healthy look of the bud, whether it has taken ; and we are assured that not 

 more than six or eight per cent, of them ought to fail. In about a fortnight 

 after, let the bandage be loosened, so as to allow the whole plant to swell, and 

 in about five weeks from the time of budding, it may be removed altogether ; 

 but sometimes, when the budding has been performed very late, the bandage is 

 left on through the winter. 



Just when the sap begins to move in the spring you " head down " the stock 

 at about half an inch above the bud, by beginning behind it, and making a sloping 

 cut upward. A piece of the stock is sometimes left, about six inches long, to 

 which to tie the first summer's shoot, to prevent it from being broken by the wind ; 

 a precaution not amiss when the shoot from the bud is exposed to high winds ; 

 but even then it is suggested to be better, it you see any danger, to tie a short 

 stick on the top part of the stock, and to this tie the young shoot, when the sap 

 will all go into the shoot through and from the bud, instead of being divided be- 

 tween it, and six inches of the stock sometimes left as above stated. Mr. Down- 

 ing bears testimony to the great advantage, when budded trees do not take readily, 

 in having recourse to Mr. Knight's excellent mode of budding thus described in the 

 Horticultural Transactions, and in which he employed two distinct ligatures to 

 bind the buds in their places : "One ligature was first placed above the bud in- 

 serted, and upon the transverse section through the bark ; the other, which had 

 no farther office than securing the bud, was applied in the usual way. As soon 

 as the buds had attached themselves, the ligatures last applied below were taken 

 off, but the others were sufi'ered to remain. The passage of the sap upward was 

 in consequence much obstructed, and the inserted bud began to vegetate strongly 

 in July ; and when these had afforded shoots about four inches long, the remaining 

 ligatures were taken off to admit the excess of sap to pass on. Thus, the upward 

 sap being arrested, the union of the upper portion of the bud (which in plums fre- 

 quently dies, while the lower part is united,) is completed, and success secured." 



Enough for the present and for the season. Having entered on the subject, the 

 reader may expect the whole management of fruit and timber trees, in all its 

 bearings, to be presented in a manner to diffuse the most recent and reliable in- 

 formation to be had. We will only add, that our attention was called to this 

 particular subject too late, we regret to say, for the July number. 



AYRSHIRE COWS. — Those who have visited Mr. Pkf.ntice's fann, near this city, can 

 hardly luive failed to notice among tlie -stately Durham cattle there, a small family of Ayr- 

 shires. The latter consist of a cow which was imported from Scothmd in 1842, and some four 

 or five of her descendants of the first and second generations, all of which bear a striking re- 

 Bemblance to the th-st named cow. Only one of the young stock has yet bred, but the im- 

 ported cow has had a calf every year since she has been in this countiy, and has been in mUk 

 nearly the whole time. Though of veiy small size, she is in shape a perfect model of a 

 milch cow, and her product at the pail is remarkable — giving this season, on grass feed, up- 

 ward of twenty quarts of milk per day ; the quantity having been ascertained by actual 

 measurement. Considering her diminutive size, which, compared witli most other cows, 

 scarcely bears a greater proportion than that of the Shetlaud pony to a coach horso, wo 

 think this very e.ttraordiiiarj-. [Alb;my Cultivator. 



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