PROPAGATION OF VARIETIES. 



21 



the stock and the lower part of the scion being the portions soonest 

 liable to perish from a want of nourishment.* 



Cleft-grafting is a very easy though rather clumsy mode, and is in 

 more common use than any other in the United States. It is chiefly 

 practised on ' large stocks, or trees the branches 

 of which have been headed back, and are too 

 large for tongue-grafting. The head of the 

 stock is first cut over horizontally with the saw 

 and smoothed with a knife. A cleft about two 

 inches deep is then made in the stock with a 

 hammer and splitting-knife. The scion is now 

 prepared by sloping its lower end in the form of 

 a wedge about an inch and a half long, leaving 

 it a little thicker on the outer edge. Opening 

 the cleft with the splitting-knife, or a small 

 chisel for that purpose, push the scion carefully 

 down to its place, fitting its inner bark on one 

 side to that of one side of the stock. When the 

 stock is large, it is usual to insert two scions, 

 Fig. 7. On withdrawing the chisel, the cleft 

 closes firmly on the scions, when the graft is 

 tied and clayed in the usual manner. 



Apple-stocks, in many American nurseries, 

 are grafted in great quantities in this mode — the 

 stocks being previously taken out of the 



ground, headed down very near the root, cleft-grafted with a single 

 scion, sloping off with an oblique cut the side of the stock opposite that 

 where the graft is placed, and then planted at once in the rows, so as to 

 allow only a single bud of the scion to appear above ground. It is 

 not usual with many either to tie or clay the grafts in this case, as the 

 wound is placed below the surface ; but when this plan is adopted, the 

 grafts must be set and the trees planted at once, drawing the well- 

 pulverized soil with great care around the graft. Another way of 

 grafting apple-stocks, common in western nurseries, consists in tongue- 

 grafting on seedling stocks of very small size, cut back almost to the 

 root. 



Large quantities of trees are also propagated by using pieces of roots 

 each three to five inches long, thus forming from the root of one stock 

 sufficient root for two or more grafts. This practice, although quite com- 

 mon, is of very doubtful value, and by some prominent horticulturists 

 considered as tending to debilitate and reduce vitality — the seat of vital 

 life in fact resting in the natural crown of the seedling, and that once 

 destroyed cannot be renewed. It is therefore apparent that but one 

 healthy permanent tree can ever be grown from a seedling stock. This 

 is performed in winter, by the fireside, the grafts carefully tied, and the 



Cleft-Grafting. 

 («). Scion ready for inser- 

 tion. (&). Stock with two 

 scions inserted. 



* In grafting large quantities of young trees when stocks are scarce, it is not an 

 unusual practice in some nurseries to tongue or whip-graft upon small pieces of 

 roots of the proper sort of tree, planting the same in the earth as soon as grafted. 

 Indeed Dr. Van Mons considers this the most complete of all modes, with regard 

 to the proper condition of the grafted sort : 1st, because the smallest quantity of 

 the stock is used ; and 2d, because the lower part of the scion being thus placed 

 in the ground, after a time it throws out fibres from that portion, and so at last 

 is actually growing on its own roots. 



