PROPAGATION. 117 



of the stock will prevent this efFect, but care is needed not 

 to pursue such treatment too far. 



The stocks are generally' headed back to within an inch 

 or more of the bud, just as vegetation starts the next 

 spring ; but early set buds may be headed back so soon as 

 they have taken, and will often make a nice growth the 

 same season. This, however, is not generally preferred, 

 and a late start in the growing weather of our autumns is 

 particularly to be avoided, as the young shoot will not be- 

 come matured before winter, and may be lost. 



The advantages of propagating by budding may be 

 summed up in the following remarks, which are presented 

 even at the risk of some repetition. 



This favorite method of multiplying varieties has some 

 advantages over grafting, and is by many preferred on 

 account of the facility with which it can be performed, 

 and because it affords a means of increasing sorts in the 

 nursery that have not been grafted, and" of filling up gaps 

 in the rows where grafts have missed ; and it has been,re- 

 ported, that budded trees of certain varieties were more 

 hardy than those which had been root-grafted. The ob- 

 jections, if such they can be called, are, that the period 

 of performing the operation is limited, and that the young 

 shoots from the buds generally have a curve that makes a 

 crook or blemish in the tree when it goes from the nur- 

 sery — ^neither of these objections constitute any real diffi- 

 culty ; on the contrary, the advantages quite over-balance 

 them : as already suggested, it is a good plan for double- 

 working certain varieties. The season for budding is at the 

 period when the longitudinal growth of the stock is nearly 

 completed, and when the wood-forming process is most 



