OF DWARF FRUIT TREE CULTURE. 61 



date this branch of my subject than pages of letter press, and here 

 I would recommend to my readers to take advantage of any oppor- 

 tunity they may have to get someone knowing how to show them 

 the manipulation of the process. One practical example will be 

 ample instruction, and success will be the result of practice and 

 painstaking. 



GRAFTING WAX is made after many formula, but one of the 

 best is: Take of tallow 1 oz., bees' wax 2 oz., rosin 4 oz. ; melt all 

 together into a uniform fluid condition by stirring and pour into 

 cold water; when cool enough to handle, having first greased your 

 hands, pull it as if pulling candy until it attains a straw color and 

 roll into convenient stick, when it will harden, and keep in a cool 

 place. When requiring to use it, again grease your hands and work 

 it up until sufficiently softened, and press it with your fingers 

 close around and filling all crevices about the point of junction of 

 stock and cion, from which it need not be 'removed as it will grad- 

 ually wear away as the tree grows. 



GRAFTING CLOTH is more convenient in many ways and is 

 made by tearing strips about one inch wide of any old materials at 

 hand, similar to rags used for making a rag carpet. These strips, 

 however, need not be sown together, but rolled as tape or a bandage 

 is rolled, the end of one piece simply overlapping the other. When 

 the roll is sufficient size for handling, one and one-half to two 

 inches in diameter, the free end of the last strip is tied loosely on the 

 roll with a thread to prevent unrolling, and is thrown into a vessel 

 of hot melted grafting wax, where, by stirring it round and squeezing 

 it with a stick, it will become saturated with the hot wax and may 

 be taken after squeezing out excess of wax and laid aside to cool. 

 When required for use sufficient of the strip *>f waxed cloth is un- 

 rolled and wound around the graft in a spiral manner, each turn 

 overlapping the previous one-half or one-quarter inch, when the 

 union will take place underneath. As the branch or graft <*rows, 

 if it shows any sign of contraction or swelling above or below the 

 wrapping it must be slackened sufficiently to prevent strangulation. 

 The importance to the suburbanite of a knowledge of budding and 

 grafting will be seen rrom an examination of the various forms of 

 training dwarf trees shown in the cuts. Much of the beauty of 

 those trained trees depends upon the success gained in securing 

 uniformity and balance in the product, especially in the Palmetto 

 and Vernier forms. If we fail to secure shoots for frame of tree 



