GRAFTAGE 



113 



are best stored in a cool cellar, care being taken 

 that the bundles are labeled at the time of packing 

 so that as soon as the weather permits, the grafts 

 may be planted. For extensive planting furrows 

 are turned, the grafts are set in place, and the soil is 

 thrown back and firmed, either by hand, with 

 tamps, or by means of a machine with heavy 

 oblique wheels which press the soil about the grafts. 

 It should be said of root grafts that they offer an 

 easy entrance to crown gall and for this reason some 

 orchardists fear to use stock so propagated. The 

 nurseryman or orchardist who feels sure that he has 

 no crown gall may safely use this method. 



Incidentally, the tops of seedlings may be in- 

 serted in a row and used as hardwood cuttings to 

 produce a crop of stocks for future grafting. 



Relative to cion root production, some nursery- 

 men have been able to demand a higher price for 

 cion-rooted stock because the purchasing orchardist has felt 

 that the trees were superior to ordinary root grafts whose seed- 

 ling roots were tender. However, in experiments conducted 

 from 1914 to 1919, J. G. Moore,* of Wisconsin, found that 

 cion root formation depends much upon the depth of planting 

 and the amount of moisture in the soil. At the end of three 

 years in the nursery not over 3.8 per cent of the varieties tested 

 produced cion roots in sufficient abundance to support the tree 

 were the roots of the stock to Winter-kill. The production 

 of cion roots was proportional to the depth at which the grafts were 

 set. Those set 6 inches deep produced better roots than those set 

 2, 3, 4, or 5 inches deep. But it would seem safe to say that the 

 roots formed on cions are generally too meagre to greatly influence 

 hardiness. 



Fig. 54. Cions 

 for cleft graft- 

 ing. 



CLEFT GRAFTING 



Cleft grafting consists in splitting a stock after it has been 

 cut off perfectly square and inserting one or two cions. These 

 should be cut wedge-shaped at the base (see fig. 54) and of 

 equal size. In cutting the wedge great care should be taken to have 

 both sides straight, neither lopsided nor scooped out. The lowest 

 bud on the cion should be just above the cut sides of the wedge. A 



* Moore, J. G. Scion Root Production by Apple Trees in the Nursery. Proceedings 

 qf the American Society for Horticultural Science, 1919. 



