THE BEECH. 285 
produced, partly from seed, but chiefly from grafting. The 
growth of the purple is equal to that of the common tree, and 
the same treatment is adapted to the seeds of both sorts. 
The seeds of the purple, however, do not produce plants 
generally so dark in the foliage as the parent tree, although 
few of them are altogether destitute of a dark hue. The 
copper-coloured, and a few of different shades, have taken 
their rise from seed cultivation, and all the varieties are 
multiplied by grafting without deviation. The common 
beech is the stock employed, but as the ordinary mode of 
grafting is apt to fail to some extent, seldom 40 per cent. 
succeeding, on account, it is supposed, of the hardness of the 
wood, the surest method is to propagate by inarch-grafting. 
This is accomplished by selecting a tree of the purple variety 
having a bushy top, hanging down to the surface all round. 
Select a few hundred healthy fibrous-rooted common beech 
plants, about two feet high, more or less in proportion to the 
size of the tree, or the number of purple plants required. 
They should be planted around the purple plant, placing them 
so that a young twig of the parent tree may be appropriated 
to each stock or plant inserted. If the stocks are well rooted, 
and removed with balls of soil at their roots, the working or 
inarching may be performed in March, immediately after the 
stocks are planted; but the most successful way is to let the 
stocks get established in the ground for a year before the 
time of inarching, which is the month of March. The hand- 
somest plants are formed by making the junction not more 
than ten or twelve inches from the ground. The operation 
of inarching is very simple; it consists in taking a thin slice 
off the side of the last year's shoot of the purple beech, in 
depth about one-third of its thickness, about an inch and a 
half in length, and nine or ten inches from its extremity, 
then at the exact point on the side of the stock where the 
scion can be brought in contact, and will lie close, make a 
similar incision on the stock, cutting only a little into the 
wood under the bark. The diameter of the stock being 
always much greater than that of the scion, the incision on 
