PEOPAGATION. 
21 
the branches are required to diverge from the main stem into fruit¬ 
bearing boughs. For the different kinds of dwarf trees the stocks are 
generally worked at heights ranging from a few inches to a foot high. 
The plan of grafting so low down on the collar of the stock, so as to allow 
the uniting parts to be covered with earth, and the scion, if so dis¬ 
posed, to root into the soil on its own account, as recommended for pears 
on the quince stock, is not advisable nor needful for apples. 
On any of the stocks we have specified the fruit-bearing heads can find 
enough sap or food and to spare alike for the making of wood and the 
development of fruit. However, there can be no doubt that apple 
stocks might be vastly improved were more attention bestowed in the 
selection of seeds for this special purpose. The refuse of the cider press 
is hardly the place to find the finest seeds of apples. This can only be 
expected from the finest fruit gathered off the healthiest trees. These 
would produce stocks of the highest quality and greater longevity. There 
can hardly be a doubt that one cause of the sudden breakdown of many 
apple trees and the weak and debilitated condition of others arises from 
the constitutional weakness of their stocks. There are even crabs and 
crabs, and not a few of them are unhealthy. In a fruit so universally 
mounted on stocks as the apple, too much care can hardly be exercised in 
the raising and propagation of only stocks of the best quality. 
\ 
III, — Grafting, 
Having thus, by the raising of seedlings from only the finest fruits of 
the best kinds, and by other means, provided a sufiicient number of stocks 
or enough root force, the art of grafting, which is our next step in 
propagation, may be defined as the appropriation of the roots of one 
plant by the tops of another and better. Hence all the other means of 
propagation seem but preliminary to this. Without root stocks there 
would be nothing to graft upon; by grafting these we convert wildness 
or worthlessness into fruitful trees laden with the best varieties. 
Grafting may be performed at any time during the growing season ; 
there is no mystery and almost as little difficulty about it. Place the 
growing parts of two plants or parts of plants together, exclude air and 
prevent disturbance, and they unite and become one. If both parts, 
the scion as well as the stock, have independent sources of support 
during the progress of the union, failure is impossible. This is why 
grafting by approach, as it is correctly called, must succeed. Each of 
the two parts is nourished by its own roots during the progress of the 
union; they therefore unite, as it were, at leisure, without any risk of 
