Propagation. 



may be successfully used in this way, as the terminal eyes are 

 stronger than any of the others. This prac- 

 tice may sometimes be adopted with advan- 

 tage with the peach, where scions of feeble 

 growth only can be obtained, as terminal buds 

 usually escape the severity of winter when 

 most of the others are destroyed. 



Spring budding is successfully practised as 

 soon as trees are in leaf, the buds having 

 been kept dormant in an ice-house or cool 

 cellar. As soon as they have adhered, the 

 stock is headed down, and a good growth is 

 made the same season. The peach, the nec- 

 tarine, the apricot, and the mulberry, all diffi- 

 cult to propagate by graft- 

 ing, may in this way be 

 easily increased by bud- 

 ding. If the buds are kept in a cellar, it will be 

 found important to preserve with them as uni- 

 form a degree of moisture as possible, and in 

 as small a degree as will keep them from wilt- 

 ing. 



Annular Budding is applicable to trees of 

 hard wood, or thick or rigid bark, as the walnut 

 and magnolia. A ring of bark is removed from the stock ; and 

 another corresponding ring, containing the bud, slit open on one 

 side, is made to fit the denuded space (Fig. 53). 



Fig. 52. 

 Terminal budding. 



Fig. 53- . 



A nnular budding. 



LIMITS OF BUDDING AND GRAFTING. 



In former ages of the world, it was erroneously supposed that 

 grafting could be performed between every species of tree and 

 shrub. " Some apples," says Pliny, "are so red that they resemble 

 blood, which is caused by their being at first grafted upon a mulberry 

 stock." Roses, it was said, became black when grafted on black 

 currants, and oranges crimson if worked on the pomegranate. But 

 the operation is never successful unless the graft and stock are 

 nearly allied, and the, greater the affinity the more certain the suc- 

 cess. " Varieties of the same species unite most freely, then species 

 of the same genus, then genera of the same natural order ; beyond 

 which the power does not extend. For instance, pears work freely 

 upon pears, very well on quinces, less successfully on apples or 



