216 Upon Grafting the Walnut Tree, 



riment by killing much of the slender annual wood, which I pro- 

 posed to use for grafts ; so that I found some difficulty in choosing 

 proper grafts. The swelling of the small, and previously almost 

 invisible, buds, within a few days, enabled me to distinguish the 

 living wood from that which had been killed by the frost, and the 

 stocks were grafted upon the 18th day of May. My grafter had 

 more than once been previously employed by me to graft Walnut 

 trees in various ways, and never having in any degree succeeded, he 

 did not seem at all pleased with the task assigned him, and very 

 confidently foretold that every graft would die : and I subsequently 

 found that he had insured, to some extent, the truth of his prophesy, 

 by having applied grafts which were actually dead. The whole 

 number employed was twenty-eight, and out of these twenty-two 

 grew well ; generally very vigourously, many producing shoots of 

 nearly a yard long, and of very great strength ; and the length of 

 the longest shoot exceeding a yard and five inches. The grafts 

 were attached to the young (annual) wood of stocks, which were be- 

 tween five and eight feet high ; and in all cases they were placed to 

 stand astride the stocks, one division being in some instances intro- 

 duced between the bark and the wood ; and both divisions being, in 

 others, fitted to the wood or bark in the ordinary way. Both modes 

 of operating were equally successful. In each of these methods of 

 grafting it is advantageous to pare away almost all the wood of both 

 the divisions of the grafts ; and therefore the wide dimensions of 

 the medulla in the young shoots of the Walnut tree do not present 

 any inconvenience to the grafter. 



No difficulties will henceforth, I conclude, occur in propagating 

 varieties of Walnuts by grafting, and I am much inclined to believe, 

 that different species, and varieties of oaks, may be successfully 

 grafted by the same mode of management. 



The art of grafting our common fruit trees has been so long, and 

 so extensively practised, that it may reasonably be supposed to be, 



