How Trees are Multiplied 



labours. Flowers and fruits and ornamental plants aie his 

 products. Let us consider an illustration ot each: i. The 

 bellflower apple is a choice variety. Mixed seeds from a cider 

 mill are planted in the nursery rows. They come up as little 

 whips, and are budded with buds from bellflower trees. What- 

 ever their lineage, these trees will be bellflowers when they come 

 into bearing, for the whole treetop came out of that one bellflower 

 bud. 2. The number of young trees of bellflower a nurseryman 

 can supply depends on the number of seedlings he buds success- 

 fully. An old tree spares hundreds of buds, so the multiplication 

 is wonderfully rapid. 3. It is possible to dwarf a variety by 

 budding or grafting it upon a slow-growing stock. Thus, the 

 stunted quince is used as a stock for varieties of pears, and dwarfs 

 result. The law of its growth enables the stock to curb the 

 ambitions of the top. 4. Tender-rooted varieties that are winter 

 killed in cold climates are often made hardy by grafting them 

 upon stocks of native kinds. For instance, the wild plum and 

 the sand cherry of Dakota and Nebraska are successfully grafted 

 with varieties of peaches, apricots and Japanese plums, whicn 

 have failed repeatedly in this dry, cold region "on their own 

 roots." Native crabs have proved good stocks for imported 

 varieties of apples. Nursery stock is oftener budded than grafted, 

 the trees being but yearling whips, as a rule. Stone fruits arc 

 generally budded. Apple trees are commonly budded in the 

 East, but root grafting is the rule in Western nurseries. Older 

 trees are grafted, to save time and labour. 



"There are as many ways of grafting as there are of whit- 

 tling," a wise horticulturist has remarked. The object in each 

 case is to fit the cion (or bud) to the stock with the cambium of 

 the two in close contact. A tied band of raffia or a covering of 

 grafting wax, or both, excludes the air and injurious substances 

 and holds the parts securely. 



Cleft grafting is very common in changing the variety ot a 

 fruit tree. For other methods see Bailey's "Nursery Book," 

 or any other horticulturist's guide. Cleft grafting is typical. 

 The end of a branch is sawed squarely off. It should be less than 

 two inches in diameter. A special grafting knife is used next. 

 Its blade, set across the stub, is driven in by the stroke of a mallet. 

 A tooth on the end of the knife is inserted in the split thus made, 

 to hold the cleft open. A cion is inserted at each end of the 



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