232 UPON THE PROPAGATION OF THE WALNUT-TREE. 



comparatively with that of the bearing tree : and by these means I 

 became partially successful. There are at the base of the annual shoots 

 of the walnut, and other trees, where those join the year-old wood, many 

 minute buds ; which are almost concealed in the bark ; and which rarely, 

 or never vegetate, but in the event of the destruction of the large pro- 

 minent buds, which occupy the middle, and opposite end of the annual 

 wood. By inserting in each stock one of these minute buds, and one of 

 the large and prominent kind, I had the pleasure to find that the minute 

 buds took freely, whilst the large all failed, without a single exception. 

 This experiment was repeated in the summer of 1815, upon two yearling 

 stocks which grew in pots, and had been placed during the spring 

 early part of the summer, in a shady situation under a north wall ; 

 whence they were moved late in July to a forcing-house, which I devote 

 to experiments, and instantly budded. These being suffered to remain 

 in the house during the following summer, produced from the small buds, 

 shoots nearly three feet long terminating in large and perfect female 

 blossoms, which necessarily proved abortive, as no male blossoms were 

 procurable at the early period in which the female blossoms appeared : 

 but the early formation of such blossoms sufficiently proves that the 

 habits of a bearing branch of the walnut-tree may be transferred to a 

 young tree by budding, as well as grafting by approach. 



The most eligible situation for the insertion of buds of this species 

 of tree (and probably of others of similar habits) is near the summit 

 of the wood of the preceding year, and of course, very near the base of 

 the annual shoot ; and if buds of the small kind above-mentioned, be 

 skilfully inserted in such parts of branches of rapid growth, they will be 

 found to succeed with nearly as much certainty as those of other fruit- 

 trees, provided such buds be in a more mature state than those of the 

 stocks into which they are inserted. 



The advantages which may be obtained in the propagation of other 

 species of trees by procuring buds for insertion in a more mature state 

 than those of the stock, are sufficient to deserve some attention, and 

 are not, I believe, at all known to gardeners and nurserymen. The 

 mature bud takes immediately with more certainty under the same 

 external circumstances : it is much less liable to perish during winter ; 

 and it possesses the valuable property of rarely or never vegetating 

 prematurely in the summer, though it be inserted before the usual 

 period, and in the season when the sap of the stock is most abundant. 

 I have, in different years, removed some hundred buds of the peach- 

 tree from the forcing-house to luxuriant shoots upon the open wall ; 



