1094 



FRUIT CULTURE. 



Fig. 1492. Fig. 1493 

 Cleft-grafting. 



of fruits should be grown, and that these 

 should receive the necessary attention to 

 secure full crops as far as possible. Many 

 " noble old fruit-trees" (noble only in ap- 

 pearance) are allowed to go on from year 

 to year bearing inferior fruit, because the 

 owner dislikes to remove them and com- 

 mence again by planting out young trees. 

 This is the most absurd and short-sighted 

 economy, and keeps the grower constantly 

 stocked with poor fruits, shutting out oth- 

 ers that are better and more profitable. 



For the benefit of such fruit-growers as 



may not be thoroughly experienced, we 



Y HP ttHB £' ve a b r ' e f summary of instructions in the 



art of grafting, accompanied with illustra- 

 tions carefully designed and executed, so 

 as to render the subject plain to the reader. 

 Grafting is the uniting of a shoot, or scion, containing one or 

 more buds, to a stalk or root, with a view, by their union, to pro- 

 duce a superior fruit upon the inferior stalk. Its object is, to attach, 

 one vegetable to another, which is to sustain and furnish matter for 

 its subsistence — to nurse it, in fact. There are various methods of 

 . grafting, but we describe here only two kinds — approach-grafting 

 and cleft-grafting, illustrations of both of which are given. 



Approach-Grafting i 



is an imitation of nature. We sometimes see in forests certain trees, 

 particularly the "hornbeam, in which a branch of one is firmly united 

 to a neighboring tree of the same species. This process is practiced 

 artificially to a great extent in gardening. The operator cuts corre- 

 sponding slices of bark from two trees, brings the two equal places 

 into contact, and lashes them firmly together with cord, which is 

 again covered with some sort of clay, to keep the wound moist until 

 a junction has taken place. (See Figs. I486 and 1487.) 



Cleft-Grafting, 



which is the method usually practiced, is operated successfully on 

 both the trunks and the roots of trees. It consists simply in split- 

 ting a stock which has first been sawed off square, and inserting on 

 each side a scion -tapered down with a sharp knife to a thin wedge- 

 shape, so that the inner bark of the scion and that of the stock will 



