HOW PLANTS ARE PROPAGATED 41 



increasing grapes, figs, poplars, and many other kinds of 

 plants. The cuttings should have two or more joints. 

 Grape cuttings usually have two or three buds. The usual 

 time to put them in the ground is late winter. Under a 

 cover of glass, and sometimes without this covering, many 

 kinds of flowers can be increased by means of cuttings, 

 for example, roses and geraniums. The chief use of the 

 cover is to keep moisture in the leaf, the soil, and the air. 



Uses of budding and grafting. So if we wish to make 

 a grape, or peach, or apple bud grow, we must plant it, 

 not by itself in the soil, but joined to enough of the wood 

 and bark to furnish it with a supply of ready-made food. 

 This is what the fruit-grower does when he plants cut- 

 tings of the grape or when he buds his peach or grafts 

 his apple trees. 



You can learn how to bud and graft fruit trees and roses 

 if you will study the pictures and directions and will prac- 

 tice a little every day for a week or two. By budding or 

 grafting the poorer varieties in your parents' orchards with 

 the buds or twigs from the best variety in some neighbor's 

 orchard, you will be of real help at home and will probably 

 be able to enjoy some of the improved fruit yourself. 



Directions for grafting. Grafting consists in making a 

 short piece of twig of one plant unite with the branch 

 or root of another. The plant that furnishes the twig 

 (called a $i'8n) must be very closely akin to the plant 

 upon whose branch or root the cion is to grow. The 

 plant or piece from which the roots spring is called the 

 stock. Generally, stocks are cornmon young plants that 

 have been grown from seed. Usually, the cion is a short 



