THE SEEDLING-INARCH 51 



These methods are inexpensive and, owing to their simplicity, 

 may be used by persons without previous experience in the 

 propagation of plants. By these methods the ever-increasing 

 number of plant breeders will be able to save much time in de- 

 termining the value of hard-wooded plants raised by means of 

 hybridization. They can be used in manipulating seedlings of 

 rare trees and shrubs intended for crossing so that each plant 

 will bloom in a much shorter time than if left to grow on its 

 own roots. Seedlings of all hard-wooded plants resulting from 

 collections made by travelers in foreign countries may thus be 

 brought to the flowering stage and their value determined 

 quickly. 



The most remarkable feature of the new methods lies not 

 only in their simplicity but also in the certainty of the unions 

 which result. The writer has had very few unsuccessful unions 

 and none among those classes of plants where the most suitable 

 stocks are known and in common use. Not only is it possible to 

 inarch a seedling a few weeks old to a large stock, but a moderate 

 sized seedling stock can be inarched to a shoot of a rare shrub 

 or tree having the same diameter as the stem of the seedling. A 

 satisfactory union may thus be induced where other methods of 

 asexual propagation have invariably failed. 



Rose seedlings resulting from crossing varieties have been 

 inarched on Manetti stocks when the seedlings were from three 

 to four weeks old, and they produced maximum sized flowers 

 long in advance of those on seedling plants growing on their 

 own roots. The rare Finger Lime, Citrus australasica, some- 

 times seen in a dwarf, sickly condition in greenhouse collections, 

 has borne fruit two years after inarching on one of its congen- 

 ers; and within nine months after flowering, hybrid seedlings 

 between this Citrus and a cultivated Orange were in their turn 

 inarched on two-year-old Lemon seedlings. 



Very young seedlings of hundreds of other rare hard-wooded 

 plants may be worked on the same or allied species or genera, 



