46 FRUIT GARDEN. 



that the parents should be as healthy as possible. In the 

 shy-bearing kinds it has been found beneficial to select 

 shoots from the fruitful branches. The cions should be 

 taken off some weeks before they be wanted, and half-buried 

 in the earth, as it is conducive to success that the stock 

 should, in forwardness of vegetation, be somewhat in 

 advance of the graft. During winter, grafts may be trans- 

 ferred from great distances, as from America, or any part 

 of the Continent of Europe, if carefully wrapped up in 

 hypnum moss. If they have been six weeks or two months 

 separated from the parent plant, they should be grafted 

 low on the stock, and the earth should be ridged up around 

 them, leaving only one bud of the cion above ground. Out 

 of forty cions of new Flemish pears, procured by the depu- 

 tation of the Caledonian Horticultural Society from Brus- 

 sels and Louvain, in 1817, and treated in this way 3 only 

 one failed.* 



Success in grafting depends almost entirely on accu- 

 rately applying the inner bark of the cion to the inner bark 

 of the stock, so that the sap may pass freely from the one 

 to the other. They are therefore fitted together, and held 

 fast by a bandage of strips of bast-matting. To lessen 

 evaporation, a portion of ductile clay is moulded around 

 the place of junction, and is retained until it appears, from 

 the development of leaves, that the operation has succeeded. 

 The best season for grafting is the month of March ; but it 

 may be commenced as soon as the sap in the stock is fairly 

 in motion, and may be continued during the first half of 

 April. 



The most usual mode of grafting is called whip graft- 



* Among these were Beurre Ranz, Marie Louise, Capiaumont, Napoleon, 

 Delices d'Hardenpont, Passe Colmar, and some others, which have acquired 

 a high character in this country. 



