CHAPTER V 

 GRAFTING 



GRAFTING constitutes a much severer test of the craftsman's skill 

 than budding, though, strictly speaking, the latter is but a variant 

 of the former. 



Known and practised by the ancients it has come down to us 

 through the ages, but we venture to think that the centuries have 

 looked upon it as unchanging as the potter's wheel . In all probability 

 its details were at one time hidden in a thick cloud of mysteries 

 as so many simple performances were to befog and to impress the 

 ignorant, but grafting has never been anything but grafting, and 

 we think we do it to-day very much as it was done by the craftsmen 

 of ancient Greece, the citizen gardener of Rome, and the monks 

 of the Middle Ages. Whether that be so or not is a matter for the 

 curious, and whatever they may decide has little practical value 

 for us. 



There are several methods of grafting, but only two of these 

 appeal to the grower of fruit trees, and only one to the raisers of 

 young stock. One is known as wedge grafting, and is usually 

 practised when we graft new heads on to advanced trees, when we 

 wish to change the variety. We may have to refer to this later on ; 

 it need not detain us now. The other method is tongue grafting, 

 and this is the most generally adopted, the method indeed we have 

 to do with here. 



Taking up the subject-matter where we left off at the end of 

 Chapter IV, we go over the budded quarters of fruit stocks early 

 in March, and behead them to within an inch or two of the bud. 

 Where there have been casualties during the winter and buds have 

 died, the season, otherwise lost, may be saved by resorting to 

 grafting. This is done at the end of the month, and the knifesman, 

 when he cuts back the stocks near to the live buds, cuts down less 

 drastically those in which the buds have missed. Some prefer to 

 leave the stock intact where grafting has to follow, on the ground that 

 the sap is assisted in its rise if the head is left on ; but this is not a 

 material point. 



