GRAFTING. 



149 



made of equal parts of rosin, lard, and beeswax. When 

 cold, it may be cut in thin slices as required for use, warmed 

 in the hand sufficiently to apply and adhere to the wood, — ^ 

 will yield to its growth, and remain until the wound is 

 entirely healed. The scion should be of the usual length, 

 exposing from three to five buds : the part inserted is cut in 

 the wedge form, very much as in the ordinary cleft-grafting, 

 except that the inner side must be bevelled to a proud edge 

 to prevent its injuriously opening the bark of the stock 

 beyond the scion, and opposite to the perpendicular cut. 

 In some of my early experiments, I made a shoulder to the 

 scion to rest upon the outside bark of the stock ; but this 

 proved entirely useless, as the scion invariably first took on 

 the inner part, from the ascending sap, except in one 

 instance, in which I reversed the scion, and inserted the top 

 <iov/n wards, when, after some delay, it appeared, so far as I 

 could discover the adhesion, to take from the returning sap 

 in the outer bark ; but as I made only a single experiment 

 of this kind, and the scion was accidentally removed soon 

 after it had taken, I am unable to give you any additional 

 facts respecting it, which might be either useful or interest- 

 ing. 



" I will now state what I conceive to be the advantages of 

 the present over the ordinary mode of engrafting and of 

 budding. Among the most important, I may perhaps say, 

 that it can be performed with more ease and with greater 

 facility, — that the scion takes more readily and grows more 

 rapidly,^ — that it may be inserted in any part of the trunk or 

 limb of the tree, without amputating or otherwise injuring 

 it, and where the other mode cannot be easily performed. 

 If it take, the necessary pruning may be made at any sub- 

 sequent period, and if it fail, the wound in the bark is soon 

 closed, the tree is not disfigured, neither is it retarded in 

 its growth, nor is the quantity of its fruit, if it be in bearing^ 

 diminished. Thus it may be said to have all the advan- 

 tages of budding, with the additional one of producing the 

 new fruit certainly one, and probably two or three years 

 sooner ; and further, it may be successfully performed at 

 any season of the year while the sap is in motion, and the 

 scions taken from the growth of the same or of the preced- 

 ing year. It will be found, too, that the stock is less 

 injured, heals more readily and effectually, than when split, 

 as in the ordinary mode of cleft-grafting. All the branches 

 of a tree may be removed clean to the trunk, and new ones 

 produced, and any shape or form given to the tree by the 

 13* 



