PROPAGATION. 39 



cut, and 3, the slit for the tongue; and the whole finished 

 and separate in Fig. 57. Three strokes of the knife are thus 

 required to cut and prepare each graft, and a rapid and skil- 

 ful operator has done one hundred and twelve in the manner 

 described, in five minutes. Each shoot is thus cut up while 

 yet held in the left hand, and the grafts, as fast as they are 

 severed, drop into the cavity of the apron already described. 

 The counting is done during the process of cutting, and at no 



other time. 



The second operation is setting these grafts into the roots. 

 Each root is held in the left hand precisely as the scion has 

 been (Fig. 58) ; the three cuts are given it (shown by the 



FIG. 62. Piece Roots. 



dotted lines in Fig. 59), to prepare it for the graft (as repre- 

 sented in Fig. 60). The grafts having been placed directly 

 under the operator's fingers, and in the right position, each 

 one is successively taken and firmly fitted to the prepared 

 root, as shown in Fig. 61, and as soon as this is done, another 

 cut of the knife, three inches lower down the root, severs it, 

 and the root-graft is finished, and drops off obliquely on the 

 table. Another sloping cut on the same root, and a slit for 

 the tongue, are quickly made, and another graft picked up 

 and inserted, the root being held all the while in the left 

 hand, until worked up. The great point is to perform much 

 with little handling. A single root will sometimes make but 

 one graft, which is then called whole-root graft; but more 



