Grafting Old Trees. 85 
off the top shoots of the current year are forced to mature buds 
very early. These buds are put into seedling stocks as early in 
the season as possible. After budding, the top of the stock is 
girdled with knife or cord, or partly cut away, and growth is 
forced on the bud so as to give a small tree at the end of the 
first summer. This method of propagation is growing in popu- 
larity in this State, especially in the foot-hill districts where small 
trees are preferred for transplanting. 
Dormant Buds——Trees are sold in dormant bud when they 
are lifted from the nursery and sent out before any growth has 
started on the inserted bud. The bud should be seen to be the 
color of healthy bark. 
Yearling Trees—These are trees which have made one 
season’s growth from the bud or graft. Two-year-olds have 
made two seasons’ growth, and soon. The proper way to count 
the life of a tree is from the starting of growth in the bud or 
graft, for this point is really the birth of the tree. 
WORKING OVER OLD TREES. 
Another operation which may be properly considered as a 
branch of propagation is the working over of old trees. There 
is much of this being done every year in this State. The old 
seedling fruits in the older settled parts of the State are being 
made to bear improved varieties; trees of varieties illy adapted 
to the prevailing conditions are changed into strong growing 
and productive sorts; trees are changed from one fruit to another, 
as with the tens of thousands of unproductive almonds which 
have been worked over into plums, prunes, and peaches. Still 
another reason for working over is to secure more valuable and 
marketable varieties. Sometimes a mixed orchard is made to 
bear a straight line of one sort which is in demand, or when the 
grower finds he has too many trees of a single kind, which give 
him more fruit than he can conveniently handle when it all ripens 
at one time, he works in other varieties so as to get a succession 
of varieties adapted to his purpose, and thus secures a longer 
working season in which to dispose of them. This is especially 
the case in large orchards of apricots, peaches, and plums, when 
the grower depends upon drying his crop. Information con- 
cerning the successive ripening of varieties can be gained from 
the special chapters on the different fruits. For all of these 
reasons, and others which need not be enumerated, the work of 
the propagator is continually going on even in our large bear- 
ing orchards. As with young trees, so with old, transforming 
the character of the tree is done both by budding and grafting. 
Budding Old Trees.—One way to prepare an old tree for bud- 
ding is to cut back the branches severely during the latter part of 
