202 



On Grafting Vines. 



which did not take, I found that the parts of the grafts which 

 joined to the stocks were sodden, and turned black, by their 

 being steeped for a considerable time in the thin sap of the 

 stock, before it became glutinous enough to cause their ad- 

 hesion. 



To stop the bleeding I tried every experiment with styp- 

 tics, cements, &c. that I ever read or heard of, with many 

 others suggested by my own imagination : but all without 

 effect. One experiment I will mention, as it may serve to 

 show the great power of the rising sap in the Vine, while its 

 buds are breaking. On the 20th of March, in the middle of 

 a warm day, I selected a strong seedling Vine five years old, 

 which grew in a well prepared soil against a south-west wall ; 

 I took off its head horizontally with a clean cut, and immedi- 

 ately observed the sap rising rapidly through all the pores of 

 the wood from the centre to the bark. I wiped away the 

 exuded moisture, and covered the wound with a piece of 

 bladder, which I securely fastened with cement and a strong 

 binding of waxed twine. The bladder, although first drawn 

 very close to the top of the shoot, soon began to stretch, and 

 to rise like a ball over the wound ; thus distended, and filled 

 with the sap of the Vine, it felt as hard as a cricket ball ; 

 and seemed to all appearance as if it would burst. I caused 

 cold water from a well to be thrown on the roots of the plant, 

 but neither this, nor any other plan that I could devise, pre- 

 vented the sap from flowing, which it continued to do with so 

 much force as to burst the bladder, in about forty-eight hours 

 after the operation was performed ; the weather continuing 

 the whole time warm and genial. 



I now fitted a graft to this stock, and after binding it on, I 



