ON PRUNING FOREST TREES, ETC. 141 
Highland pine plantations, see Chapter x1, on “ THINNING 
PLANTATIONS.” 
Grafting in plantations for embellishment_—In plantations 
adjoining pleasure grounds, along the side of drives, or where 
it is desirable that the ordinary species of trees should be 
converted into kinds more picturesque in form or more attrac- 
tive in foliage, this is readily accomplished by grafting, parti- 
cularly if the trees are not more than twenty or thirty years 
of age. The simplest and most successful method of grafting 
such is to saw off the top where it is only an inch or two in 
diameter, make a slit about an inch and a half long in the 
bark of the stock, raise the bark with an ivory handle, to 
make a space for the graft or shoot to be inserted, which 
may only be six or seven inches long; prepare it by a smooth 
slanting cut on one side, slip in the prepared scion with the 
cut side next to the wood to the length of the cut of one inch 
and a half; tie round with mat, and cover closely with graft- 
ing clay all over the wound on the stock. After the clay is 
dry, and all fissures filled up, the ball may be covered over 
with moss or meadow hay, and tied over to insure safety and 
exclude severe drought. When the stock at the point of 
grafting is older and of several inches in diameter, another, 
and the easiest mode, is, after sawing off the top, to tie the 
stock round tightly for a few inches beneath the point of 
amputation, and force down a peg of hard wood, or any 
hard substance, between the wood and the bark, in the shape 
of the prepared scion, then withdraw the peg and insert 
the scion, pressing it tightly into the incision; by this 
method two or three grafts or scions may be inserted around 
the edge of the same stock, then clay as recommended. The 
month of March is the ordinary season for the operation, or 
just as the buds are beginning to swell. When the graft has 
grown a few inches the clay should be removed, and the 
bandage retied, adding a stalk to support the scion from 
being broken off by wind. Among ornamental trees the oak 
affords a great variety of evergreen and sub-evergreen,—such 
as Turners, Fulham, and Lucombe ; and few trees are more 
