iv AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS December, 1909 
Is Our Latest Pattern 
ALL STEEL RAIL AND HANGER 
FRAME 
Le ! l , | Ke A ) @ The simplest and cheapest 
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434.466 PROSPECT STREET POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. 
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GUARANTEE LABELS 
Guarantee labels on enameled ironware are various and are variously 
translated in practice. 
Careful architects have come to understand that it is the spirit 
behind the guarantee that counts for most after all. The liberal, 
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L. WOLFF MANUFACTURING CO. 
Established 1855 {-—=—=———<—$a <—$<—$<—$— ——_——————— 
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GENERAL OFFICES: 601 LAKE STREET 
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Omaha, Neb.: 1108-12 Nicholas Street 
GRAFTING FOR BOYS 
By E. P. Powell 
T IS getting to be difficult, anywhere about 
| the country, to secure the services of a com- 
petent grafter. Fifty years ago the Connec- 
ticut pioneers, moving westward, carried the 
art with them. It was very seldom that a 
New England boy of ten could not graft apple 
trees. Each family took from the old home 
lot a few scions of Spitzenburg and Swaar and 
Pound Sweet, so that in this way the choicest 
New England fruit was soon to be obtained all 
along the pioneering route through New York, 
Ohio and Michigan. I do not understand en- 
tirely why this has become a lost art, the art 
of putting the best fruit into seedling trees. It 
is very likely that it has come about from the 
fact that we can buy from nurserymen grafted 
trees. It is true, however, that our very best 
way to secure a good orchard is to grow seed- 
lings, and graft them ourselves. 
It is a simple affair, and our boys ought to 
be taught the art, together with a good deal 
more agricultural information and practise in 
our schools. We shall come to that after 
awhile, but for the present I urge upon every 
country dweller to have a little nursery for the 
raising of good stock. When the young apple 
trees have grown to about five feet, eliminate 
every scabby tree and those which show signs 
of lack of vitality, or ability to resist the frost. 
Selecting the best, teach your boys to insert 
the scions by cleft grafting. This kind of work 
interests the lads and makes home life a good 
deal more entertaining. After a little practise 
you will find a passion for collecting and pre- 
serving choice novelties in the fruit line that 
would otherwise be lost. ‘These seedlings are 
making themselves useful in localities every- 
where, and are appreciated by the neighbor- 
hood. Many of them ought to be multiplied 
and distributed to the people at large. When 
your children have learned this art, they can 
apply it to roses and shrubs quite as readily as 
to fruit. Budding is but little more difficult. 
Grafting and budding are based on the fact 
that the cells of a scion will determine the char- 
acter of a fruit on a grafted limb—that is for 
the most part. It is quite true, however, that 
the stock will also more or less modify the scion. 
Here comes in a nice problem for the young 
grafter, and he will soon be trying to improve 
sorts, and grow better kinds of apples and 
pears. Inarching is a form of grafting, where 
two plants stand near together, and you wish 
to multiply the one at the expense of the other. 
Draw over the limb that you wish to propagate, 
and where it touches the other stalk insert it in 
a clean cut that will just admit it. ‘Tie the 
branch there firmly for a few weeks and you 
will find that a union has taken place. Skilful 
horticulturists practice over one hundred 
different ways of grafting and budding. Now 
what I am at is to encourage the boys and the 
girls also to practice this art, and to get so 
familiar with it that they will devise new 
methods themselves. It is also excellent 
discipline, because it requires exactness and 
precision of workmanship. 
If this business of grafting is carried out 
scientifically and studiously it will constitute 
a good big chapter of education for the young 
fellow. Of course he understands very easily 
that his work is intended to propagate a 
variety that will not come true from seed. If 
he sows his pear seeds from a Sheldon, they 
will give him all sorts of new things; but if 
he inserts a scion of Sheldon in a wild stock 
he gets Sheldon. Only there is, every time, a 
little modification, and just how much modifi- 
cation he can make in the way of improvement 
is a problem for him. He knows that he can 
not graft apples into maples, or he ought to 
veraft a plum into a peach, or a peach into a 
know it, but just how wide this possibility of 
uniting species goes he must find out. He can 
