ADVANTAGES OF GRAFTING. 267 



If we trace the cultivation of the apple to the com- 

 mencement, we find that the first step is the preparation 

 of a soil of good quality as a nursery -ground. For this 

 purpose the land should be trenched eighteen inches 

 deep, and planted with young plants of the crab raised 

 from seed, and one year old, each plant being placed 

 at the distance of six feet from the others. These plants 

 will be fit for grafting the following year, that is, when 

 they are two years old ; and during the early period of 

 their growth they will not be injured, but rather bene- 

 fited, if the ground be planted with potatoes, or other 

 low-growing crops, and be regularly manured. 



The next operation is grafting, and this is a curious 

 and interesting art. To those who have never wit- 

 nessed the operation and its effects, it is indeed a 

 wonderful sight to see that by cutting down a tree, 

 bearing small and unprofitable fruit, and fitting closely 

 and binding to it a shoot from a tree bearing large and 

 delicious fruit, you get a flourishing tree bearing the 

 same rich fruit as that from which the shoot was taken, 

 and not partaking at all of the nature of the sour, in- 

 ferior produce of the stock. It is a very interesting 

 fact with respect to grafting, that there must be a near 

 relationship between the trees, otherwise the operation 

 will not succeed. No doubt St. Paul knew this, or he 

 would have chosen some greater contrast than the wild 

 olive and the true olive, when he described the grafting 

 in of the Gentiles to the Christian Church. Some spu- 

 rious grafts have indeed been contrived, so as to give 

 the appearance of several trees flourishing on the same 

 stock ; but these have either been deceptions, or short- 

 lived attempts to force an opposition to natural laws. 



Many advantages arise from grafting. Approved 

 varieties of trees are thus multiplied with very little 

 trouble, and their peculiar flavour and richness pre- 

 served. If there is a tendency to weakness in the ori- 

 ginal tree, it is often checked in the young scions or 

 shoots, by inserting them into vigorous and healthy 



