PROPAGATION. 
season is favourable to growth and also to the conservation of force. 
Early in the spring the earth and air are moist and cool, and there is 
little or no waste of the stored-up juices of the scion by evaporation. 
The early sunshine excites rather than exhausts the sap, and the gentle 
excitement and motion of fluids thus originated is favourable to the 
joining together of the scion and the stock. The spring is also a time 
of rapid growth, and thus it happens that long before the scion has 
exhausted its stock of fluid a fresh flood of sap is forwarded by the 
roots to hasten and complete the union of the two parts. 
The chief art of grafting may be briefly deflned as choosing the righ-j; 
time for uniting the parts and the making of a good match. The two 
parts of scion and stock must have strong points of affinity. The apple, 
for instance, should be grafted on some species of apple, or, at the 
furthest remove, on thorns ; and so of other plants. The idle tales 
we have heard of grafting peaches on willows, and so getting rid of 
their stones, are as false as they are wild. Apples even on pears speedily 
die, their natural affinities not being close enough for a permanent union. 
But not only must family affinities be studied, but the uniting parts of 
the scion and the stock must be placed in contact. The uniting power 
reaches its utmost force neither in the wood nor the bark, but in the 
border land of cambium, or young wood between the two. This cambium 
is really wood in the process of forming or consolidating, and, as might 
be expected, if the wood-forming principles of the scion and the stbcks 
are placed in near contact, the two consolidate their power and make 
one common and indivisible wood between them. 
Possibly vegetable physiologists may object to this deflnition, as very 
often a union is effected without the wood of the scion and the stock 
amalgamating into one. All, however, will agree that the most active 
uniting parts of the scion and the stock should be placed and kept in 
close contact till the two are united. Both have an important and, 
perhaps, an equal share in forming the union. It is common, indeed, 
to speak and write as if the stocks take the scions on, the latter being 
almost passive agents in the matter. This is, however, by no means 
the case. The action is reciprocal between the two, and each assists 
the other in the making or perfecting of the union. If these general 
principles are recognised and acted on, it is of far less moment what 
particular mechanical device or mode of grafting is adopted to carry 
them into practice. 
The simplest methods of grafting are mostly the best and the most 
successful. This is the reason why splice or whip grafting has acquired 
so much popular favour. Anyone who has spliced a broken walking 
stick or whip handle, to make either strong, can understand and practise 
