56 MANUAL OF AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING 



" A skillful grafter will make about one hundred tongue grafts 

 on cuttings per hour, or from sixty-five to seventy-five per hour 

 if he does the tying as well. Wire grafts can be made at the 

 rate of two hundred and fifty or more per hour, and by proper 

 division of labor where several grafters are employed this 

 number can be easily exceeded. These estimates do not in- 

 clude the preparation and grading of the cuttings." 



Grafting rooted cuttings. 



The cion may be grafted on a stock rooted in the nursery 

 the previous season, much the same methods being used as 

 with cuttings. This method is employed to utilize cuttings 

 too small to graft, the added sizes attained in the nursery mak- 

 ing them large enough, and in grafting on stocks which root 

 with difficulty, thus saving the making of grafts which never 

 grow. The stocks, in this method, are cut so that the cions 

 may be inserted as the original cutting and not as the new 

 growth. The roots, for convenience in handling, are cut back 

 to an inch or thereabouts in length. 



The callusing bed. 



If bench grafts are planted at once in the nursery, most of 

 them fail. They are, therefore, stratified in a callusing bed 

 where moisture and temperature can be controlled. Bio- 

 letti describes a callusing bed and its use as follows : 1 



"This callusing bed is usually a pile of clean sand placed 

 on the south side of a wall or building and surrounded by a 

 board partition where there is no possibility of its becoming 

 too wet by the flow of water from a higher level or from an 

 overhanging roof. It should be protected, if necessary, by 

 a surrounding ditch. It should be furnished with a removable 

 cover of canvas or boards to protect it from rain and to enable 

 the temperature to be controlled by the admission or exclusion 

 1 Bioletti, Frederic T. Calif. Exp. Sta., Bui. 180: 113-118. 



