BUDJ)ING OR GRAFTING BY DETACHED BUDS. 



301 



become vitally united to it. On these facts the art of budding is founded. 

 This mode of grafting is chiefly applicable to woody plants, and the scion 

 may, in general, be secured to the stock, and sufficiently protected there, by 

 bandages of bast-mat or thread, without the use of grafting clay or 

 wax. The union between the scion and the stock takes place, in the 

 first instance, in consequence of the exudation of organisable matter from 

 the soft wood of the stock ; and it is rendered permanent by the returning 

 sap from the leaves of the stock, or from those of the shoot made by the bud. 

 All the different modes of budding may be reduced to two : — shield-budding, 

 in which the scion is a piece of bark commonly in the shape of a shield, con- 

 taining a single bud ; and flute-budding, in which the scion consists of a ring 

 or tube of bark containing several buds. In both modes the bark of one year 

 is chosen in preference ; and the operation is more certain of success when 

 the bud of the scion is placed exactly over the situation of a bud on the stock. 

 The shield may, however, be placed on the internodcf?, or a piece of bark 

 without buds may be put on as a scion, and yet a vital union may take place 

 between the parts, because the medullary rays exist every v/here in the wood, 

 and it is by them, during the process of organisation, that the layer of wood 

 of one year in a growing state is joined to that of the year before. A disk or 

 shield from which the visible bud has been removed will also succeed, and the 

 latent buds may remain dormant for years, and yet be developed afterwards. 

 In the year 1824 we placed several buds on the branches of a fig-tree, and, 

 from some accidental cause, though the shield adhered in every case, yet 

 most of the visible buds were destroyed, and only one of the latent buds was 

 developed. Twelve years afterwards, when the fig-tree received a severe 

 check, in the winter of 1837-8, the development of a second latent bud from 

 one of the shields took place. When the bud is placed on the stock, its 

 point is almost always made to turn upwards, as being its natural position ; 

 but in budding the olive, and other trees which are liable to gum, the bud is 

 made to point downwards, and the success is said to be greater than when the 

 common mode is adopted. There are two seasons at which budding is prac- 

 tised, viz. : — when the sap rises in spring ; when the bud inserted is deve- 

 loped immediately, in the same manner as in detached ligneous scions ; and 

 •n the end of summer, when the sap is descending, the operation being then 

 performed with a bud formed during the preceding summer, which does not 

 develop itself till the following spring. The former mode is caUed by the 

 French, budding with a growing eye ; and the latter, budding with a dormant 

 eye. In budding, the stock is not generally cut over in the first instance, as 

 in grafting by detached ligneous scions ; but a tight ligature is frequently 

 placed above the graft, with the intention of forcing a part of the ascending 

 sap to nourish the graft. 



675. The uses of budding^ in addition to those of the other modes of graft- 

 ing, are, to propagate some kinds with which the other modes of grafting are 

 not so successful, as, for example, the rose. To perform the operation of 

 grafting with greater rapidity than with detached scions, or inarching, as in 

 the case of most fruit-trees ; to unite early vegetating trees with late vege- 

 tating ones, as the apricot with the plum, they being both in the same state 

 of vegetation during the budding season; to graft without the risk of 

 injuring the stock in case of want of success, as in side-budding, and in 

 flute-budding without heading down ; to introduce a number of species or 

 varieties on the same stem, which could not be done by any other mode of 



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