340 



HARDY FEUIT GARDEN. 



stock quickly, properly tied, &c., adheres more 

 readily. On the contrary, in wet cloudy weather 

 the sap is more thin and watery, and the bud 

 will not unite so freely." To this he adds, " that 

 a fall of rain — likely in such weather — after the 

 buds are inserted, will fill up the incisions, and 

 thereby rot and perish the buds before they 

 have time to unite with the stock. Not only is 

 clear weather best for the experienced budder, 

 but likewise for the amateur and tyro." 



Much of the success depends on the state of 

 the bud. " The mature bud," Mr T. A. Knight, 

 in " Transactions of the Horticultural Society," 

 vol. iii. p. 136, observes, " takes immediately 

 with more certainty, under the same external 

 circumstances; it is much less liable to perish 

 during winter, and it possesses the valuable 

 property of rarely or never vegetating prema- 

 turely in the summer, though it be inserted be- 

 fore the usual period, and in the season when 

 the sap of the stock is most abundant. I have," 

 he says, " in different years, removed some 

 hundred buds of the peach-tree from the 

 forcing-house to luxuriant shoots upon the open 

 wall; and I have never seen an instance in which 

 any of such buds have broken and vegetated 

 during the summer and autumn. But when I 

 have had occasion to reverse this process, and 

 to insert immature buds from the open wall on 

 the branches of trees growing in a peach-house, 

 many of these, and in some seasons all, have 

 broken soon after being inserted, though, at the 

 period of insertion, the trees in the peach-house 

 Lad nearly ceased to grow." The season of 

 budding, or rather the state of the plant, is of 

 primary importance in securing success. " Buds 

 should either be inserted," says Dr Lindley, in 

 " Theory of Horticulture," p. 244, " when the 

 vegetation of a plant is languid, or growth above 

 the place of insertion should be arrested by 

 pinching the terminal bud; otherwise the sap 

 which should be directed into the bud, in order 

 to assist in its adhesion, is conveyed to other 

 places, and the bud perishes from starvation. 

 For similar reasons, when a bud begins to grow, 

 having firmly fixed itself upon the stock, the 

 latter should be headed back nearly as far as 

 the bud, so as to compel all the current of sap 

 to flow towards it, otherwise the buds of the 

 stock itself will obtain that food which the 

 stranger bud should be supplied with." 



Much of the success in budding depends on 

 the condition of the bud at the time of its inser- 

 tion ; yet even as to that condition opinions are 

 by no means agreed. We have stated that such 

 buds as appear to have lost their root or heart 

 by the operation of extracting the woody matter 

 under them, are useless, and should be dis- 

 carded. This is denied by Mr Lymbum, who 

 asserts that blind buds owe their origin to the 

 bud itself being diseased, more than to the sup- 

 posed injury they sustain in the removal of the 

 piece of wood connecting the bud with the al- 

 burnum. A writerin "The Gardeners' Chronicle," 

 1842, on this matter remarks: "The bud will 

 sometimes take although the heart appears to bo 

 gone ; it will sometimes adhere and start quickly, 

 although more wood be left in the shield than 

 will allow the sides to lie flat down; but the 



evident desideratum is, that no more of the wood 

 adjacent to the eye be left than will secure its 

 close attachment to the shoot upon which it 

 may be placed, nor any less than may suffice to 

 retain the growing principle, the limit of which 

 must be defined by a combination of theory and 

 practice, and at present remains a problem to be 

 solved. Many buds have I inserted, in which 

 the eyes have not been sufiiciently swollen, and 

 no produce has come forth ; and many a bud 

 have I inserted, in the hope that the cambium 

 would fill the vacant hole, which fear told me 

 was too large, yet which a scanty supply of buds 

 induced me to retain — ^bu t all in vain ; for though 

 the bark adhered the eye was lost, and many a 

 wood bud inserted thus has become dry before 

 it could adhere. I beHeve the great secret to be, 

 taking the bud in its proper state — i. e., full 

 formed (not too near the base of the stock, from 

 which it will part with difficulty, nor too near 

 the top, because insufficiently ripe) — and to insert 

 it when the receiving plant and the weather are 

 in a favourable state to continue the elaboration 

 of those juices necessary to form a junction. The 

 period of the year is, comparatively speaking, 

 immaterial. I have inserted buds at all times, 

 and have now in my possession a plant that was 

 worked on the 21st October, ten years ago. 

 Shoots that grow angularly, and are nearly the 

 same size all the way up, afford better buds than 

 such as are produced on long rapid-growing 

 branches : the buds on the latter are seldom 

 well defined, and if inserted at all hollow in the 

 centre, are sure to go blind." 



Peculiar advantages of budding. — To those 

 noticed above we may add the facility that the 

 process affords of producing a shoot in almost 

 any part of the tree, at the will of the operator, 

 where, without this transplanting of a bud, no 

 branch could be induced to form. Many varie- 

 ties may by this mode be made to grow on a 

 siugle tree, which no other species of grafting 

 could effect so completely. Many stone-fruits 

 are multiplied by this means, which could not 

 be BO successfully accomplished by the other 

 species of grafting. And, lastly, the buds of 

 young fruit-trees, when transplanted to the 

 branches of full-grown ones, will be induced to 

 produce their fruit, which, if left on the parent 

 stem, might not do so for years. Mr Knight, 

 by transferring the blossom buds of an abundant 

 fruit-bud-producing tree to the branches of those 

 which do not show these organs so profusely, or 

 even sparingly, caused excellent crops of fruit 

 thus to be produced on the latter. 



Natural advantages of budding. — Trees propa- 

 gated by this means are thought to be of longer 

 duration than those that are grafted ; they also 

 are in general two years longer in pi-oducing 

 fruit than grafted ones of the same species. The 

 process is employed on most stone-bearing fruit 

 trees, as in their case grafting is apt to bring 

 about a disposition in them to throw out gum 

 at the point of union. Trees, also, which may 

 have failed to take by grafting in spring, may be 

 budded in July or August — an important matter 

 in fruit-tree nurseries. Most woody plants may 

 be multiplied by budding, many of which could 

 not be oJ)erated on by grafting. 



