304 



GREENHOUSE MANAGEMENT. 



cover the end of the cion, and it is bound in place. 

 Either of these methods of side grafting will be found 

 particularly desirable for grafting the choice varieties 

 of ornamental trees, both evergreen and deciduous. 

 If the stocks are in pots they can be given a rest during 

 the early winter and then started into growth so that 

 they can be worked in January and February. 



Many propagators have found difficulty in the dry- 

 ing out of the cions of conifers before the callus forms, 



but if they are placed on 

 their sides upon a shallow 

 bed of wet sphagnum, 

 where they will have a 

 little bottom heat, and 

 the pots and grafts are 

 then covered with the 

 same material, the mois- 

 ture will be retained and 

 the failures will be very 

 few. The same course 

 can be pursued to ad- 

 vantage with choice de- 

 ciduous trees. The stocks 

 should be cut back to 

 some extent at the time 

 of grafting and as soon as growth has commenced the 

 remaining portion may be cut away. Many other kinds 

 of grafting have been practiced at various times and by 

 different propagators, but none produce better results 

 than the methods here described. 



In all cases except when large stocks are cleft grafted 

 it will be necessary to wrap the graft with wax string, 

 raffia, or yarn, in order to bind the cion and stock firmly 

 together. Care should also be taken that all cuts are 

 smooth and true, and a sharp knife with an even bevei 

 from the back to the eds^e of the blade should be used. 



FIG. 103. SIDE GRAFTING. 



