GRAFTING. 



GRAIN. 



mode is by grafting, as it produces stronger ! 

 plants in a shorter time than any other me- 

 thods. Grafting is performed in a great many 

 diff^ent ways; but the most eligible for ordi- ! 

 nary'purposes is what is commonly called' 

 splice-grafting, whip-grafting, or tongue-graft- 

 ing. In executing this mode, both the scion 

 and the stock are pared down in a slanting 

 direction ; afterwards applied together, and 

 made fast with strands of bass matting, in the 

 same manner as two pieces of rod are spliced 

 together to form a whiphandle. To insure 

 success, it is essentially necessary that the al- 

 burnum, or inner bark of the scion, should 

 coincide accurately with the inner bark of the 

 stock ; because the vital union is effected by 

 the sap of the stock rising up through the soft 

 wood of the scion. After the scion is tied to 

 the stock, the graft is said to be made ; and it 

 only remains to cover the part tied with a mass 

 of tempered clay, or any convenient composi- 

 tion that will exclude the air. Some of the 

 other modes practised are termed cleft, or slit- 

 grafting, crown-grafting, cheek-grafting, side- 

 grafting, and grafting by approach, or in- 

 arching. 



The season for performing the operation is, 

 for all deciduous trees and shrubs, the spring, 

 immediately before the movement of the sap. 

 The spring is also the most favourable period 

 for evergreens : but the sap in this class of 

 plants being more in motion during winter 

 than that of deciduous plants, grafting, if 

 thought necessary, might be performed at that 

 season. 



Grafting Timber Trees. The oak, ash, horn- 

 beam," and hazel, may be grafted, but there is a 

 little difficulty in grafting some of the hard- 

 wood trees. On the oak may be worked its 

 striped-leaved variety of pcdunculata, and the 

 varieties of sessiliflora. The lucombe, and 

 other oaks of that kind, require to have the 

 Turkey oak for a stock ; and the evergreen, or 

 Ilex oaks, must have their own species. The 

 common ash will take with the ornus, and any 

 of the hardy varieties of true ashes, such as 

 the Chinese and entire-leaved. The hornbeam 

 may be used as a stock for Carpi-nus orientalis, 

 and the cut-leaved sort ; but the scions must be 

 from two years old wood. The purple-leaved 

 hazel may be grafted on the hazel stocks. 



Grafting by approach, or inarching, is a mode 

 of grafting, in which, to make sure of success, 

 the scion is not separated from the parent 

 plant till it has become united with the stock. 

 Inarching is chiefly practised with oranges, 

 myrtles, jasmines, walnuts, firs, &c., which 

 do not flourish by the common mode of graft- 

 ing. 



Grafting herbaceous plants differs in nothing 

 from grafting such as are of a woody nature, 

 excepting that this operation is performed when 

 both stock and scion are in a state of vigorous 

 growth. The only useful purpose to which 

 this mode has been hitherto applied is, that of 

 grafting the finer kinds of dahlias on tubers of 

 the more common and vigorous-growing sorts. 

 In the Paris gardens, the tomato is sometimes 

 grafted on the potato, the cauliflower on the 

 borocole, and one gourd on another, as matter 

 of curiosity. 

 564 



Grafting the herbaceous shoots of woody plant* 

 is scarcely known among English gardeners; 

 but it has been extensively employed by French 

 nurserymen, and even in some of the royal 

 forests of France. The scions are formed of 

 the points of growing shoots ; and the stocks 

 are also the points of growing shoots, cut or 

 broken over an inch or two below the point, 

 where the shoot is as brittle as asparagus. 

 The operation is performed in th clef* manner; 

 that is, by cutting the lower end of the scion 

 in the form of a wedge, and inserting it in a 

 cleft or slit made down the middle of the stock. 

 The finer kinds of azaleas, pines, and firs, are 

 propagated in this way in the French nurse- 

 ries ; and thousands of Pinus larix have been 

 so grafted on Pinus sylvestris in the forest of 

 Fontainebleau. At Hopetoun House, near 

 Edinburgh, this mode of grafting has been 

 successfully practised with Abies Smithiana, 

 the stock being the common spruce fir. 

 (Brande's Diet, of Science.) 



GRAIN (French graine ; Ital. gran; Norv. 

 grion, corn). The general name of all kinds 

 of corn. See WHEAT, MAIZE, OATS, BARLEY, 

 CORN-LAWS, &c. It means, in another sense, 

 the seed of any fruit, the direction of the fibres 

 of wood, &c. ; the form of the surface, with 

 regard to roughness or smoothness ; or a mi- 

 nute particle. In this article 1 have only to 

 insert those facts with regard to grain that 

 could not be well included under other heads. 

 It has been calculated that the total consump- 

 tion of wheat and other grain in the United 

 Kingdom is, in a year of wheat 12,000,000 

 quarters, and of other grain 40,000,000 quar- 

 ters, equal to 52,000,000 quarters, or per day 

 154,762 quarters. (Quart. Journ. of Jlgr. vol. 

 iii. p. 1063). Of this about 25,000,000 bushels 

 of barley are consumed in malt by the brew- 

 eries and distilleries. 



Dr. Colquhoun has calculated that the an- 

 nual consumption of grain in England by each 

 person is as follows : 



Average of 

 each person. 



- 1 quarter. 



- H 



Species of grain 

 Wheat - 

 Barley 

 Oats - 



Rye - - 



Beans and Peas 



The second Fiar Prices of Grain per imperial 

 Quarter for the County of Haddington from 

 1647 (at Internals of Ten Years) to 1829. 



