IMPORTANT FLORISTS' PLANTS 



167 



inches high and divided into sections, each large enough for one day's 

 grafting. 



A simple case may be made by building up the sides of a bench and 

 covering it with a hotbed sash hinged to the side of the bench. Such 

 cases should be tight and perfectly under control so that a uniform 

 temperature of 80 degrees may be maintained. A layer of coal ashes 

 which is kept moist will supply the humidity for the early growth of 

 the grafts. (See fig. 18.) 



PREPARATION FOR GRAFTING 



Manetti stock is usually obtained in December and potted into 2^- 

 inch pots. Use a good Rose soil and place the pots in a house with a 

 temperature of 50 degrees. Some growers place the pots under the 

 Carnation benches. They are syringed twice a day to soften the wood 



Fig. 91. A Rose stock cut ready for grafting. From Holmes Com. Rose Culture, p. 36 



B Rose cion for grafting. From Holmes Com. Rose Culture, p. 33 



(See page 167) 



and cause them to start to grow more uniformly. They should be 

 examined at regular intervals to ascertain when the white roots have 

 started well. Then they are grafted. Cions should be selected which 

 are of the same sort as the wood used for cuttings. 



GRAFTING OPERATIONS 



The small grower handling only a few hundred Roses had best buy 

 his grafted stock for the process of grafting is rather painstaking. 



The splice graft (see figs, 59 and 91) is used, in which the stocks 

 are cut off as near the soil as possible with a long, slanting cut and 

 the cions are prepared with a similar oblique cut A cion is then placed 

 on the stub of a stock with the cambium layers in contact. If the stock 

 and cion are of equal size, the cambium layers will fit on both sides but 



