10 
the low trees used here, it has been much more economical to apply 
the water by hand daily than to prepare the contrivances mentioned 
above for maintaining the moisture. When the branches have 
established root systems, the box is removed from the tree and the 
soil washed out carefully with a stream of water. This process, 
without injuring the roots, permits easy separation of the rooted 
stems of the different branches, if these have not been allowed to 
remain too long on the tree. Plate III, figure 2, shows one of these 
troughs with rooted branches which are being removed to be estab- 
lished as independent plants. 
Another modification of layering, used successfully on low trees 
or on trees which can be surrounded easily by a platform, consists 
in the use of small branches, not more than a quarter of an inch in 
diameter, laid through one side of a gallon tin cut for the purpose. 
These make small plants, but many more can be taken from the 
tree without reducing its size seriously. It is too early to state how 
long it may take these little plants to catch up with those that have 
been started from larger branches. 
Although layering has the advantage of exact reproduction of 
varieties and rapid fruiting, nevertheless, it is a slow and cumbersome 
method not well adapted to the rapid multiplication of varieties 
usually desired by American nurserymen. There is also ground for 
the belief that its excessive use may have a devitalizing effect Upon 
the parent tree. Girdling for the purpose of forcing heavy production 
of fruit is generally believed to have such an effect upon litchi trees, 
perhaps because the root system and other parts of the parent tree 
are robbed of the energy used in forcing fruit production in the 
girdled branches. It is not unreasonable to suppose that something 
of the same effect may follow the production of new root systems on 
many branches. While no definite data can be recorded, there is 
some evidence supporting this belief. 
BUDDING AND GRAFTING. 
With the exception of a limited use of inarching, the practice of 
budding or grafting, almost universally employed in the commercial 
culture of fruit trees and vines in America and Europe, is scarcely 
ever applied to the litchi. A number of trees have been spoken of 
in a general way as budded trees of the litchi, but closer investigation 
has proved them to have been layered. Aside from the advantages of 
speed and facility in multiplication, budding and grafting afford the 
opportunity to use, as root stocks, other varieties or species, which 
may offer as decided advantages in the case of the litchi as are well 
known to exist in the case of many other fruit trees. For example, 
the litchi grows slowly and frequently requires eight or nine years in 
Hawaii to come into bearing, even when grown from layers. Kelated 
species which are of more rapid growth, are known, and these should 
