THE EDITOR'S ALPHABET 



OF 



GARDENING. 



143 



" Professor Thouin has enumerated about fifty methods of grafting, but they 

 all depend upon the same principles as already explained. 



" Bud Grafting, or Budding. 



" Instead of a slip, or scion, the bud of one plant may be so inserted into the 

 bark of another as to grow, and produce branches, flowers, and fruit. It is 

 requisite for this purpose that a leaf-bud, known by its tapering sharp point, 

 be selected, and not a flower-bud, known by its bulging and rather blunt point. 

 It is necessary that the leaf connected with a bud be cut off*, otherwise it would 

 soon exhaust the sap, and the bud would wither and die. It is also necessary 

 that the bark separate freely, which is the test for there being pulp enough to 

 form a joining. When the bud is inserted, it must be tied round with a rib- 

 band of bass, to exclude the air. Fine rose standards are thus formed. 



6 - a c 



" a, the bud, cut out with a shield of bark attached to it ; 6, the stem, with a slit in the bark 

 to receive the shield attached to the bud ; c, the bud inserted, and the leaf cut away. 



ff Herb Grafting, 



" Though grafting is usually confined to trees, De Candolle thinks all plants 

 may perhaps be capable of being so treated, and Baron deTschoudy has in this 

 way succeeded even with annual plants, as well as with the soft young shoots 

 of trees ; but it is necessary to success to have it performed near to or at the 

 inner base* of a living leaf, which serves to attract the sap. 



" In the case of plants with succulent leaves, it has been asserted, on authority, 

 that " the union is imperfect," from the adhesion being " by the cellular sub- 

 stance only, '* no woody matter" being transmitted to the stock. That this is 

 quite erroneous is shown by the following instance of a Cactus truncatus grafted 

 on a Cactus triangularis in the King's garden at Neuilly, as beautifully dissected 

 and drawn by M. Turpin. This also equally disproves the common opinion 

 that the graft in such cases is merely kept alive by the moisture supplied by the 

 stockj and would do as well if struck into a potato or a piece of moist spunge. 

 It certainly furnishes a strong disproof of the baseless theory that maintains 

 buds and grafts to send down woody matter to the stock as roots descend into 

 the soil. 



* "In Latin, Axilla, which means armpit." 



