334 



BUDDING. 



liber ; it is therefore essential, in the first place, that those 

 parts, both in the stock and the scion, should be placed in 

 contact. In regard to the medullary rays, these are so nu- 

 merous and so closely placed that it is scarcely possible that 

 a portion of one stem should be applied to another without 

 the medullary rays of both touching each other at many 

 points. No care, therefore, is required to ensure this, which 

 may be safely left to chance. But in regard to the liber, 

 or inner bark, as this is confined to a narrow strip in both 

 stock and scion, great care must be taken that they are both 

 placed as exactly in contact with each other as possible, so 

 that the line of separation of the wood and bark should, in 

 both stock and scion, be accurately adjusted. The success 

 of grafting depends very much upon attention to this. But 

 there are other reasons why this accuracy in adjusting the 

 hne between the bark and wood of the stock and scion is so 

 important. It is at that part that the roots of the latter pass 

 downwards over the former ; and it is also there that the 

 substance called cambium, which serves as food for the 

 young descending fibres, is secreted. It is obvious, that 

 the more accurate the adjustment of the line separating the 

 wood from the bark, the more ready will be the transmission 

 of young fibres from the one to the other ; and that the less 

 the accuracy that may be observed in this respect, the greater 

 the difficulty of such transmission will be. Provided the 

 stock and scion be of exactly the same size, the adjustment 

 can scarcely fail to be accurate in the most unskilfuf hands; 

 it is in the more common case of the scion being much 

 smaller than the stock, that this is to be most particularly 

 attended to. 



BUDDING. 



Budding differs from grafting in this, that a portion of a 

 stem is not made to strike root on another stem, but that, on 

 the contrary, a bud deprived of all trace of the woody part 

 of a stem is introduced beneath the bark of the stock, and 

 there induced to strike root. In this operation no care is 

 requisite in securing the exact contact of similar parts, and 

 a free channel for the transmission of the roots of the bud 

 between the bark and wood of the stock ; for, from the very 

 nature of the operation of budding, this must of necessity be 

 ensured. The bark of the bud readily coheres with the 

 wood of the stock, and secures the bud itself against all ac^ 



