68 THE LYCHEE AND LUNGAN 



plants in six inch pots; had they been used when in three inch pots 

 the results might have been more successful, therefore no reliable 

 deductions could be drawn from what 1 did with them. " 



Grafting and Budding 



Chinese recognize the art of grafting and on the lychee com- 

 monly employ a form of grafting which they call tsich chili (tsip chi 

 &&). In using this method it is customary to use the mountain 

 variety "shan chih " (Ulfj: for stock and after the seedling is three 

 to six years old to cut off the whole head at about five or six feet 

 above the ground and place in a wedge shaped graft of the desired 

 variety. I have never seen them employ grafting wax but they 

 usually cover the point of graft with mud and protect the graft from 

 the hot sun by means of a bunch of rice straw tied over the graft. 

 This method is very common in Lokang (HISO) and in other places 

 is often used to top-work trees. In Fukien it is also widely practiced 

 both on the lychee and lungan, and Hsu Po (^f#) in his records of 

 the lychee in Fukien speaks of '"tsieh chih" and says, "Secure 

 seedling of the sour kinds, cut off the trunk and use a sharp knife to 

 make a crack and then insert another branch so that the skin of the 

 two comes together. Bind with tree leaves and cow manure mixed 

 with clay." Experiments in grafting and budding the lychee and 

 the lungan have received some attention at the Hawaii Station and a 

 method of bark grafting has proved thus far successful in top work- 

 ing lungan trees to lychee. Mr. Higgins says: " Repeated experi- 

 ments with this method have shown that there is no ^reat difficulty 



in securing a union of the litchi with the longan A noteworthy 



influence of the stock on the scion should be mentioned here. The 

 growth produced is very much more rapid than that of the litchi on 

 its own roots, and in some cases the character of the foliage appears 

 to undergo a change. " 



The Chinese apparently do not recognize the art of budding 

 and hence do not employ it on the lychee. Mr. Higgins ] reports, 

 'The budding of the litchi on the longan has been accomplished in 

 Hawaii, but this method is not so successful as that of grafting des- 

 cribed above. " 



1 Higgins, J. E., The Litchi in Hawaii, Hawaii Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, Bulletin No. 44, p;ge 11. 



