348 



Rain and strong 

 sunshine to be 

 avoided. 



Nurseries of 

 stocks should 

 not be 0? er 

 crowded. 



DEFECTS OF CRAFTING AND BUDDING. 



The third point is, that there should be no grafting ox 

 budding in rainy weather, or in very strong sunshine. The 

 first is apt to swell the graft and buds, and overload them 

 with moisture, so that they are killed with plethora ; and 

 too much sun dries up the bark and rind, and draws off the 

 moisture, so that the bark draws itself up from the bark of 

 the stock, and they are forced asunder. The gardener 

 imagines it is owing to the thickness of the rind, whereas it 

 is generally his own fault : many disappoint themselves, 

 because they cannot bear to leave off, when they have once 

 begun. 



Great care should also be taken, that the nursery, from 

 which the stocks are brought, is not over crowded, and yet 

 this appears to me to be little thought of. No one, who 

 does not dissect vegetables, or trees in particular, can have 

 an idea how much they are the children of habit. One 

 vessel by the accidental pressure of another, or some trifle, 

 gets a twist, which is followed by the next, and so on by a 

 third ; the daily impression continues ; the plant grow* 

 stiffer, and therefore more incapable of being righted j till 

 the whole tree takes a spurious shape, from so trifling and 

 minute a cause, that no one would credit it, if remembered. 

 There is not any thing more beautiful than a well grown 

 tree, if proper pains were taken to make it straight, and well 

 shaped. To graft it, is certainly to give it a defect ; but if 

 well grafted, the injury is small, as it should be little in- 

 creased in size at the grafting place. A grafting or budding, 

 that can be easily pointed out six or eight years after, is 

 badly performed ; and one that enlarges the tree Where it is 

 budded is badly done. If gardeners would encourage their 

 grafters to be double the time about it, they would find 

 their account in it. The smallest quantity of air introduced 

 increases instead of banishing the rot already there. In 

 cutting 120 grafts, and 90 buds, more than 70 of the 

 grafts had so much rot in them as could not be banished 

 without greal care; for when there is rot, if a severe frost 

 eomes, and this part is not guarded, the frost attacks it, 

 and the decay increases. The first proof of this is the 

 shrinking of the most distant branches. 



Ther* 



