PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING AND BUDDING. 69 



" Double grafting " * is a comparatively modern practice, 

 principally resorted to in the case of delicate-rooted varieties 

 of the Pear, of which such as Seckel, Van Mons, Beurre' 

 Flou, Huyshe's new varieties, and others, may be cited as 

 examples. Some Pears do not bear well on their own roots, 

 neither will they flourish on the Quince stock ; yet when some 

 strong-constitutioned Pear is worked on the Quince, and used 

 as an intermediate or go-between stock for a delicate variety, or 

 one which does not coalesce perfectly with the Quince stock, 

 excellent results are obtained. In soils which do not suit the 

 Quince, but in which the Pear luxuriates, this order may often 

 be reversed by using some good-constitutioned Pear as the 

 root-stock on which to graft the Quince, which again in its turn 

 is worked the following year with the kind of Pear desired to 

 form a fruiting specimen. Mr Rivers of Sawbridgeworth has 

 tested " double grafting " in this country, and speaks well of 

 the results in the case of particular varieties. (See Pyrus.) 

 M. Baltet has the following remarks on this subject : " Those 

 kinds of Pear w r hich do not answer well when grafted directly 

 on the Quince such as Abre Courbe, Beurre Bretonneau, 

 Beurre Spae, Beurre d'Apremont, Grand Soleil, Marie Louise, 

 and others may be grafted in the intermediary way on a hardy 

 kind which has itself been previously grafted on the Quince 

 such as Bon Chretien d'Ete and de Bruxelles, Jaminette, 

 Monseigneur des Hous, Cure, &c. These may be grafted the 

 second year with the tender kinds. In the nurseries at Vitry- 

 sur-Seine they employ the variety Cure, while at the establish- 

 ment of MM. Jamin & Durand at Bourg-la-Reine they prefer 

 the Jaminette. The same mixed method is used to obtain tall 

 standard Pears on the Quince. The vigorous kinds, as Beurre 

 d'Amanlis, Beurre Hardy, Madam Favre, and others, form 

 stems directly, and serve as intermediary tall standard stocks 



* One of the earliest records of double grafting I have seen is in Parkin- 

 son's ' Paradisus ' (1629), p. 540, in which he gives a most interesting 

 account of stocks to be used, &c. Speaking of the red Nectarine, then the 

 rarest and dearest of all fruit-trees, he remarks : "The other two sorts 

 of red Nectarins must not be immediately grafted on the Plum stock, but 

 upon a branch of an Apricock that hath been formerly grafted on a Plum 

 stock;" and it is further interesting to find the white Pear Plum, described 

 as the " goodliest, freest, and fittest " of all stocks for Peaches, Nectarines, 

 and Apricots. Parkinson here uses the word grafting in its widest sense ; 

 and his remarks on " double grafting" are corroborated by another intelli- 

 gent old author, R. Austen, who, in his 'Treatise of Fruit-Trees' (1655), 

 p. 57, makes the following statement : " But I hold it best to inoculate 

 the Roman red Nectrine upon the bi'anch of an Aprecock which before hath 

 been inoculated upon a good Plum stock, that it may give not only a larger 

 but a finer nourishment than ordinary Plum stocks can doe." 



