PROPAGATION BY GRAPTING. 41 



country. The seeds from which stocks are to "be raised 

 are generally sown in beds in March ; but the germi- 

 nation of some kinds is promoted by 'placing the seed, 

 for a time, in damp sand in a green-house. Next 

 season the seedlings are transplanted into nursery rows, 

 in which they are allowed to reach the size necessary 

 for the various forms of fruit-trees hereafter to be 

 mentioned. 



The cion is always a portion of the wood of the pre- 

 ceding year. As the diseases incident to fruit trees 

 are apt to be transmitted by this mode of propagation, 

 it is desirable 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 con- 

 ducive to success that the stock should, in forwardness 

 of vegetation, be somewhat in advance of the graft. 

 During winter, grafts may be transferred from great 

 distances, as from America, or any part of the Conti- 

 nent 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, pro- 

 cured by the deputation of the Caledonian Horticultural 

 Society from Brussels and Louvain, in 1817, and treated 

 in this way, only one failed.* 



^ Among these were Beurre Ranz, Marie Louise, Capiaumont, 

 Napoleon, Delices d'Hardenpont, Passe Colmar, and some others, 

 AYhich have acquired a high character in this country. 



