36 



ORANGE CULTURE. 



bud — exposed to light and air ; but a skillful worker Avill use only- 

 one strip, giving a certain downward slant to the last turn above, 

 that will carry it below the bud in front, and then continuing the 

 wrapping until the base is well covered ; tying the strips, as we 

 nave sa id, is needless. In two weeks vou will know whether vour 

 work has been "for better or for worse ; " the former certainly, if 

 all has been done "decently and in order;" the junction always 

 takes place at the top first, therefore, as the edges swell and unite, 

 the top wrapping should be first loosened, say in ten days after 

 the sprout has started, and the lower wraps a week later ; it is 

 better to loosen at first, than to remove them entirely, as the newly 

 formed bark needs some protection for a month or two. 



Having thus investigated the mysteries of the more popular 

 art of ljudding, let us next " interview " that which may well be 

 termed its " elder brother." 



Far, far back in the olden times, the theory and practice of 

 grafting or multiplying and perpetuating remarkable varieties or 

 monstrosities, by the union of a young shoot from one kind of plant 

 with the stem of another, was almost as well undersood as at the 

 present day ; it is not an art which admits of much progress or al- 

 teration ; there is but one means of securing success, and there- 

 fore, as we graft now-a-days, so did the ancient Greeks and Jews 

 and Chinese before us. The New Testament refers to the art as 

 practiced by the Jews ; Pliny and Virgil tell us that it was famil- 

 iar to the Greeks, but no w^here can we trace the first discovery of 

 what, though so common, is one of the most wonderful phenomena 

 of nature. As to the Chinese, the first Roman Catholic mission- 

 aries who ventured to penetrate the then mysterious fastnesses of 

 heathenism, taught them the art, and so readily did they take up 

 the new idea thus presented to them, that very soon they excelled 

 their teachers, just as, at the present day, they surpass all other 

 nations in the practice of curious and unique modes of grafting 

 shoot upon shoot, stem upon stem, until ofttimes, six or eight, 

 ten or twelve kinds of fruit (of the same natural family of course) 

 may be seen borne upon the same tree, all flourishing, all strong 

 and healthful. 



There is no one function of the horticulturist more impor- 



