PROPAGATION BY BUDDING. 



45 



When stocks are in the best condition, it is unnecessary 

 to raise the bark any further than to admit the lower point 

 of the bud, which, as it is pushed downwards, performs this 

 operation in the most perfect manner. When the bark does 

 not peel freely enough for this purpose, success becomes: 

 very uncertain. 



Budding is performed in summer, grafting in spring, and 

 both have their advantages. Budding is a simpler opera- 

 tion, and more successfully performed by a novice. It is 

 the best means to multiply the peach and nectarine, grafting 

 very rarely proving successful. It is more rapidly per- 

 formed, and at a season not crowded with the labors of 

 transplanting. It admits a repetition the same summer, in 

 cases of failure, the stocks remaining uninjured. But in all 

 cases thrifty stocks are needed, while grafting will succeed 

 m those older and less vigorous. Grafting requires less 

 ~,are subsequently, as no ligatures need removing, nor stocks 

 leading down, and may be conveniently employed as a re- 

 medy for failures in the previous summer's budding. In 

 England, where most fruit trees do not make so rapid a 

 growth as here, budding is less esteemed ; while from the 

 noisture of the climate preserving grafts from dying, graft- 

 ng becomes more successful. 



Terminal Budding. — It sometimes happens, where buds 

 ire scarce, that the terminal bud on the shoot may be used 

 o advantage. In this case, the wood is cut sloping down' 

 yards, and the insertion is made as usual, fig. 33, except 

 that it becomes necessary to apply the 

 whole of the ligature below the bud. 

 The buds on small side shoots which are 

 not more than an inch or two long, may 

 be successfully used in this way, as the 

 terminal eyes are stronger than any of 

 the others. This practice may sometimes 

 be adopted with much advantage with the 

 peach, where scions of feeble growth only 

 can be obtained, as such buds usually es- 

 cape the severity of winter when most of 

 the others are destroyed. 



Spring budding is successfully practiced 

 Flg- 33, as soon as trees are in leaf, the buds hav- 



