PROPAGATION BY BUDDING AND GRAFTING 155 



dipping into a pail of water, and are carried in a high side- 

 pocket in the jacket. The handiest mallet is a simple club or 

 billy, a foot and a half long, 

 hung over the wrist by a loose 

 soft cord (Fig. 180). This is 

 brought into the palm of the 

 hand by a swinging motion 

 of the forearm. This mallet 

 is always in place, never drops 

 from the tree, and is not in 

 the way. The knife shown 

 in Fig. 168 is commonly used. 

 A downward stroke of the 

 mallet drives the knife into the 

 tree, and the return upward FlG - 179 - Arranging stubs to avoid bad 

 motion strikes the knife on the 



outer end and removes it. Another downward motion drives 

 in the wedge. The sharpened nails and sticks commonly pic- 

 tured as wedges in cleft-grafting are use- 

 less for any serious work. The various 

 combined implements devised to facili- 

 tate cleft-grafting are usually impracti- 

 cable in commercial work. 



It is very important that the cleft-graft 

 be kept constantly sealed up until all the 

 wounded surfaces are completely covered 

 with the healing tissue. Old wood never 

 heals. Its power of growth is completed. 

 If a limb of an apple tree a half inch or 

 more in diameter is cut off, the heart or 

 Grafting-mal- core o f the wound will be found to be 

 incapable of healing itself. It is covered 

 over by the callus tissue that grows from the cambium under- 

 neath the bark. The wound becomes hermetically sealed by 



FIG. 180. 



let (x T V>- 



