108 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



As to the mode of engrafting on old stocks, the 

 following will be found the most convenient in every 

 case, being at once the easiest to perform and the 

 surest of success. Cut off all the branches a little 

 above the stem, leaving as many stumps as may serve 

 for the insertion of ten or twelve young shoots : make 

 the cut smooth and horizontal. This is better for 

 preserving the wood in sap, and when the graft has 

 grown a season or two, its awkward seat may be re- 

 duced, so as to encourage the closing of the bark. In 

 improving the operation, having smoothed the hori- 

 zontal cut, take out, on the side of the stump, a 

 wedgeshaped piece of the bark, two inches long, 

 of a breadth, at the upper end, equal to the diameter 

 of the young shoot ; give the slip a splicecut of the 

 same length, and take a little off each edge of the 

 splice, bringing the extremity to a point : set the 

 point into the place prepared for its reception, and 

 press it gently down to a perfect adaptation of the 

 bark in all parts : and then apply the fastening and 

 clay as above directed. This is the neatest of all the 

 methods of engrafting, and the least liable to fail or 

 produce canker by any fungous or unnatural growth. 



Intimately connected with grafting is the nice art 

 of inserting a bud, from which proceeds a shoot, then 

 branches, and then a large spreading and fruitbear- 

 ing tree, possessing in all its parts the same qualities 

 and producing the same fruits as that from which 

 the bud was at first abstracted. This is one of the 

 greatest wonders of art; and as we do not see any 

 natural process at all analogous to this, or any ready 

 way of anticipating the effect, the first conception of 

 the thing, giving rise to the experiment, is to be 



