REGKAFTING OLD TREES. 



23 



2. By manuring the trees the bearing year with bone and pot- 

 ash, which lias a tendency to produce fruit buds; or by using 

 nitrogenous manures the unfruitful year, which will produce a 

 large growth of wood at the expense of the fruit buds. 



3. Seeding down to grass the bearing year might produce the 

 same result, but there would be danger that the crop of fruit 

 and the crop of grass taken from the ground the same year, 

 might result in too great a check upon the growth of the tree. 



4. Plowing an orchard in turf the unfruitful year would also 

 produce the desired change. 



By the judicious use of the above methods the fruit grower 

 may control very largely the bearing year of his fruit trees, and 

 be able to produce fruit when it will bring the highest price. 



RE-GRAFTING OLD TREES. Upon many farms and in many 

 orchards are often found healthy, vigorous trees that pro- 

 duce fruit of little value. Such trees may be grafted with any 

 more desirable variety, and in a few years will produce valuable 

 fruit. The kind of grafting to be employed is called cleft-graft- 

 ing (Fig. 24). It consists in first cutting off as many branches, 

 from two to three inches in diameter (which are called stocks), as 

 are needed to make a full head, if the whole top is to be grafted. 

 This number will vary from ten to perhaps fifty branches, accord- 

 ing to the size of the tree. After all the stocks have been cut 



I *|# off, they are to be pared smooth. 



. _ i'liliMinin i'l^ / Then, beginning with the highest, 



^e M each stock is split with the blade of 



^^ the grafting-hook, Fig. 19, a. The 



Fig. 19. hook, c, is to hang the tool by when 



not iii use. The blade L now driven out by a blow upon the head 

 of the wedge 6, and the wedge driven into the cleft (Fig. 20), to 

 keep it open until the cioii is 

 prepared and inserted. The 

 cion, Fig. 21, a piece of ma- 

 ture wood of last season's 

 growth, from three to four 

 inches long, with from three 

 to five buds upon it, is then 

 cut wedge-shaped in two ways, 

 as is shown in Fig. 21 ; a cross- 

 section of the wedge-shaped 

 cion is shown at Fig. 22. The 



cioii must be cut with a sharp, Fig. 20. 



thin-bladed knife, with one quick, clean stroke on each side. 



The cion is then inserted into the cleft with the cambium or 

 inner bark in close contact with the cambium or inner bark of the 



stock ; the thicker part of the cion at a, Fig 22, being placed out- 



