44 TREES AND SHRUBS 



Always keep a plant on its own roots whenever 

 possible. Budding and grafting are only makeshifts ; 

 but, of course, if it is impossible to increase a tree or 

 shrub by any other means, then resort to budding 

 or grafting. It is strange that layering is yet only 

 in its infancy. We have gone on blundering for 

 generations, and propagating wholesale in the most 

 uncertain and unsatisfactory of all ways, that is, by 

 grafting or budding when neither was in the least 

 expedient. Such tricks have hindered the develop- 

 ment of English gardening. 



