BOOK IV. 



PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 



393 



He adds, " When great difficulty is found in making a tree, whether fructiferous or 

 ornamental, produce blossoms, or in making its blossoms set, when produced, success 

 will probably be obtained in almost all cases, by budding or grafting upon a stock 

 which is nearly enough allied to the graft to preserve it alive for a few years, but not 

 permanently. The pear-tree affords a stock of this kind to the apple ; and I have obtained 

 a heavy crop of apples from a graft which had been inserted in a tall pear-stock, only 

 twenty months previously, in a season when every blossom of the same variety of fruit in 

 the orchard was destroyed by frost. The fruit thus obtained was externally perfect, and 

 possessed all its ordinary qualities ; but the cores were black, and without a single seed ; 

 and every blossom had certainly fallen abortively, if it had been growing upon its native 

 stock. The experienced gardener will readily anticipate the fate of the scion ; it perished 

 in the following winter. The stock, in such cases as the preceding, promotes, in propor- 

 tion to its length, the early bearing and early death of the graft." 



2027. Species and varieties iif grafting. The chief modern writers on grafting are, 

 Quintiney, Du Hamel , Rosier, and Professor Thouin, among the French ; Mayer, Die- 

 derich, Christ, and Sickler, among the Germans ; Clarici and P. Re, among the Italians ; 

 and Miller, Curtis, and Knight, among the English. Professor Thouin has refined so 

 much on the subject, as to have produced or enumerated above forty modes of grafting, 

 besides a great many kinds of budding and inarching, named chiefly after eminent an- 

 cient and modern botanists and gardeners, as Pliny, Virgil, Quintiney, Miller, Adanson, 

 c. Most of these are, however, varieties of the ordinary species, and separated by such 

 slender shades of difference, or so remotely connected with utility (as the Greffe Banks), 

 that they do not appear of sufficient importance for admission here ; and we shall, there- 

 fore, chiefly describe such varieties as have been long known and practised ; which form 

 the basis of all the others ; and which every individual may vary according to his taste. 

 The reader who would enquire further into the subject, may consult Curtis'b Lectures on 

 Botany, vol. iii. and Nouveau Cours Compkt d' Agriculture, &c. torn. xvi. art. Greffe. 



2028. Whip-grafting (jig. 379. a), 379 

 or, as it is sometimes called, tongue- 

 grafting, is the most generally adopted 



in nurseries for propagating fruit- 

 trees. To effect this mode in the best 

 style, it is desirable, that the top of 

 the stock, and the extremity of the 

 scions should be nearly of equal dia- 

 meter. Hence this variety admits of 

 being performed on smaller stocks 

 than any other. It is called whip- 

 grafting, from the method of cutting 

 the stock and scions, sloping on one 

 side so as to fit each other, and thus 



tied together in the manner of a whip- *eM :.'\jfc J i / Afc tfnr ^Si^=a~-. lis> f 



thong to the shaft or handle. The 9^& 

 scion and stock being cut off obliquely a 



at corresponding angles, as near as the operator can guess, then cut off the tip of the stock 

 obliquely or nearly horizontally ; make now a slit nearly in the centre of the sloped face 

 of the stock downwards, and a similar one in the scion upwards. The tongue or wedge- 

 like process, forming the upper part of the sloping face of the scion, is then inserted down- 

 wards in the cleft of the stock ; the inner barks of both being brought closely to unite on 

 one side so as not to be displaced in tying, which ought to be done immediately with a 

 riband of bass, brought, in a neat manner, several times round the stock, and which is 

 generally done from right to left, or in the course of the sun. The next operation is to 

 clay the whole over an inch thick on every, side, from about half an inch or more below 

 the bottom of the graft, to an inch over the top of the stock, finishing the whole coat of 

 clay in a kind of oval globular form, closing it effectually about the scion and every part, 

 so as no light, wet, nor wind may penetrate ; to prevent which is the whole intention of 

 claying. It may be added, that the whip-grafting of Lawson, and other old horticultural 

 writers, was then practised without a tongue, which addition gave rise to the latter term. 

 The French mode of whip-grafting differs from the English in their never paring more 

 off the stock, however large, than the width of the scion (Jig. 380. e,f, g). In both modes, 

 the stock is sometimes not shortened down to the graft, but a few inches left to serve as a 

 prop to tie the shoots proceeding from the scion ; or even to admit of fastening the liga- 

 tures used in the operation more securely. In either case, if the graft has succeeded, this 

 appendage is cut off at the end of the season. 



2029. Cleft-grafting (Jig. 379. 6) is resorted to in the case of strong stocks, or in head- 

 ing down and re-grafting old trees. " The head of the stock or branch (which we may 

 suppose to be two or three inches in diameter) is first cut off obliquely, and then the 



