GRAFTING 23 



covered with grafting clay or grafting wax to keep the uniting parts 

 air-tight. Scions are normally 2 to 6 ins. long, and the chances of success 

 are naturally greatest when they and the stock are of the same diameter. 



The propagating case, mildly heated, is of great assistance in grafting. 

 The most convenient method and the surest with rare or delicate trees and 

 shrubs is to have the stocks brought into a moist house and grafted there. 

 Such shrubs as Hama?nelis, rhododendrons and brooms are always treated 

 that way. The stocks may be potted, or their roots laid in earth. Robust 

 common trees like oaks, maples, and the ordinary fruit-trees can be done 

 out-of-doors. For deciduous trees and shrubs, and, indeed, for most 

 things, spring is the best time, usually April out-of-doors, earlier under 

 glass. But many evergreens and some deciduous things are successfully 

 grafted under glass in late summer and early autumn. As a general rule, for 

 spring grafting, propagators like to have the stock slightly more forward 

 in growth than the scions ; the latter are often cut some time before- 

 hand and laid in the ground to keep them back, and for indoor grafting 

 the stocks are usually taken under glass some time before the operation. 



On the whole, in private establishments, propagation by grafting is of 

 much less importance and general practicability than that by cuttings or 

 layers. There is, however, one mode of grafting that might be more 

 generally practised and has no objections to be urged against it. This is 

 grafting the twigs of a plant on pieces of its own root. When all other 

 attempts at propagation have failed this has been known to succeed. 

 Pieces of root about the thickness of the proposed scion should be selected. 

 After the two are fitted and tied together in the ordinary way the root 

 should be potted, leaving only that part of the scion which is above the 

 cut exposed, then placed in gentle bottom heat. Wistarias are very 

 readily propagated in this way. 



INARCHING, OR GRAFTING BY APPROACH. 



This process bears the same relation to grafting that layering does to 

 propagation by cuttings. The scion is not separated from the mother- 

 plant until a new union has taken place with the stock or foster-mother. 

 The essential principle is exactly the same as in grafting. The two plants 

 are brought together one at least has usually to be in a pot the branches 

 selected for union are then fitted together by taking a slice off one and a 

 corresponding slice off the other. The inner barks have to be placed in 

 contact, and the two tied together and finally covered with wax or clay 

 just as for grafting. Inarching often occurs in Nature, especially in trees 

 with crowded branches like limes. The method is too inconvenient to be 

 generally adopted, but a quaint use is sometimes made of it to unite the 

 tops of two young trees of the same sort at the entrance to a garden or 

 summer-house so that they ultimately form a gothic arch. 



