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title of "precise grafting," we class veneer-grafting and 

 grafting by inlaying. 



Veneer -Grafting. — General Directions. 

 This method is principally employed in grafting certain 

 trees and evergreen shrubs, and for grafting under glass 

 with the air excluded. Nurserymen and florists practise it in 

 the open air or in the propagating house, in spring rather than 

 in autumn, especially in the case of evergreens. A stock with 

 the sap in a condition of moderate activity and a well-ripened 

 scion are the two first essentials. The scion may be a shoot 

 of the current year or of the preceding one, according as the 

 grafting takes place in the autumn or in the spring. Its 

 length varies from 2 to 6 inches, and it must be cut with a 

 flat splice-cut without the least unevenness, in order to fit 

 the stock exactly. ■ If it is evergreen, the leaves are not 

 removed, and it is not cut from the parent-tree until imme- 

 diately before it is fixed. The metro-greffe here comes into 

 requisition ; with its help a cut is made in the stock the exact 

 size of the splice-cut on the scion. Nothing then will obstruct 

 the union of wood and bark. The two parts are put together 

 without cleft or insertion, by simply applying the scion to the 

 top or the side of the stock, under the bark, or with the bark 

 removed, employing either one scion or several. Such are the 

 various modes of branch veneer- grafting. "We shall proceed 

 to treat of them in detail, without speaking of veneer bud- 

 grafting, which is described in the chapter on bud-grafting, 

 as we are now engaged with the subject of grafting with 

 detached branches only. 



Ordinary Veneer-Grafting. 

 By this method a scion is brought into contact with the 

 first layer of alburnum in the stock. The stock is not to be 

 headed down beforehand. In the case of an evergreen, the 



