90 A.MERICAN POMOLOGY. 



plump. The roots and scions having been prepared and 

 under shelter, the work of grafting may proceed at any 

 time during the winter. The stocks, if not clean, should 

 be washed, and one hand trims off the side rootlets. The 

 grafter cuts a hundred scions of the appropriate length, 

 which he puts into a shallow box on the table ; he takes up 

 a stock, cuts the slope near the collar, and a dextrous 

 hand will at the same time make the sloping cut to re- 

 ceive the first graft and also the tongue, if that style of 

 grafting is to be done, as is usually practised. He then 

 picks up a scion, from a lot which himself or another hand 

 has already prepared with a slope and tongue, and adapts 

 it to the root, the tongue keeping the two together ; a por- 

 tion of the root is then cut off with the graft, and the 

 process is repeated upon the next section. Two or three 

 or more grafts, are thus made from one seedling root ; the 

 length of the sections vary from two to four inches, ac- 

 cording to the fancy of the operator, or of his employer. 

 Some persons recommend a long scion with a short root, 

 and others prefer to reverse those terms. The whole rogt 

 graft should not be more than six or seven inches long. 



When any given number of scions are fitted to the 

 roots, a boy completes the process of grafting, by applying 

 melted wax with a brush, in which case they a-re dropped 

 into water to harden the wax, or they are wrapped with 

 waxed strips of muslin or paper, or, better still, they are 

 tied with waxed thread. No. 3 cotton yarn is drawn 

 through a pan of melted wax, and wound upon a reel 

 plajced at the other side of the room, so that the wax 

 may harden. This waxed thread is a very convenient 

 tie ; the graft being hfild in the left hand, the' thread is 



