MiiTUOOS Ul- GRAFTING 



239 



do not please him but which are too good to destroy — 

 seedlings, trees untrue to name, shy bearers, others in 

 which graft or bud has failed but a sucker developed, 

 and so on. Any desired number of varieties may be 

 worked upon the same tree, the number being restricted 

 only b}' the available branches or stocks. 



312. Cleft grafting, the method perhaps most widely 

 employed outside of commercial establishments, finds its 

 chief use in amateur practice to work over seedling and 

 unsatisfactory trees to 

 desired varieties. Every- 

 one should know how to 

 perform it, because there 

 is no telling when it may 

 become useful. Though it 

 is, in a sense, not widely 

 used commercially, it 

 commands rather ex- 

 tended treatment in any 

 book on plant propaga- 

 tion. 



The stocks, one-half 

 to two inches or perhaps 

 even larger, sawed 

 squarely across with a 

 sharp, fine-toothed saw 

 and made about six 

 inches long, are split Pa 

 inches deep with a graft- 

 ing iron (Fig 194) and 

 then wedged apart until 

 the cions, usually con- 

 taining three buds, and 



cut wedge shaped below are adjusted with a slight out- 

 ward slant, one at each side of the slit. The wedge is 

 then gently remo\'ed so as not to displace the cions, and 

 all the wounded surfaces thoroughly waxed over. The 



FIG. 194— GRAFTING AND BUDDING TOOL 

 KIT 



Reading from the lefli Cleft grafting 

 iron; siiears; grafting knife; pruning knife; 

 cleft-grafting mallet; in center below, budding 

 knife; string cutting kni/e. 



