8i5 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
1902 
ROOT GRAFTING AND MOW TO DO IT. 
The Whole Story Clearly Told. 
NOT A DIFFICULT JOB.—There are many country 
people who have some idea of how root grafting is 
done but who have never tried it nor seen others do 
it. Some may be anxious to put up a few apple grafts 
the coming Winter and set them out next Spring, for 
the purpose of growing a few trees for their own use, 
for apple trees are usually propagated in this way. It 
is usually better to let the nurserymen grow the trees 
and buy them ready for setting than to try to do such 
work on the farm; but, as the operation is very sim¬ 
ple and by no means costly, and it is very interesting 
as well, the necessary directions are given. 
STOCKS AND SCIONS.—The first thing is to get 
the stocks or roots on which to graft. Some may 
think that any kind of apple roots will do, but this 
is a great mistake. Small roots dug up from large 
trees are of no value, because the scions will not 
unite with them, strange as it may seem. Large or 
No. 1 apple seedlings are the best, and those one year 
old are much better than two-year-olds. They cost 
from $4 to $5 per 1,000, and are mostly grown on new 
and very rich prairie land in Iowa and neighboring 
States, that they may make good growth and be free 
from all diseases. Such stocks are cheaper as well as 
better than the chance seedlings which may be dug 
up about the farm. Not a day should be lost in get¬ 
ting these roots bought and put into a very cold cellar 
or buried in the earth outside; but they must be pro¬ 
tected so they will not be frozen and yet be accessible 
at any time in the Winter. The scions should be cut 
as soon as possible, tied in bundles, securely labeled, 
and put in a similar place. Any temperature that will 
induce the slightest swelling of the buds on the stocks 
or scions will damage them. 
THE TOOLS AND MATERIALS needed to do the 
work are very simple. Any small knife with a large 
handle and a thin and rather wide blade will do for 
making the grafts, provided it has good steel, for the 
cuts must be smooth, and this requires a keen edge. 
A small shoe knife will serve the purpose well. A 
good supply of waxed thread, conveniently arranged, 
is all that is needed to complete the preparations. 
This is made by getting small “cotton twist,” which 
is usually sold in skeins or hanks and at a low price. 
It should be wound on large spools or into balls. I 
have used pieces of corncobs about five inches long in¬ 
stead of wooden spools, and they are about equally 
good. Wind on as much as they will hold. They 
should then be boiled in common grafting wax, which 
is made of one part of tallow, two parts beeswax or 
paraffin, and four parts of rosin, melted together. 
When the spools or balls are well saturated with the 
hot wax they should be taken out and put in any 
convenient place for future use. 
THE GRAFTING can be done any time after all 
things are ready, as has just been directed, but not 
later than about the first of March. The grafts must 
have time to heal or knit together. It is done by 
nurserymen in grafting houses, which are merely 
rooms or shops where the grafters can be made com¬ 
fortable and good light afforded. But any place of 
the kind, as a good 'cellar or workshop, is all right. 
I have put up many thousands of root grafts in my 
kitchen during the days when it was too cold to work 
outside, and on Winter evenings, my wife and little 
boy doing the tying, counting, labeling, and bundling. 
If the spools of thread are put overhead by some de¬ 
vice that will allow them to unroll easily, it will be 
handier than to have them on the table before the 
grafter. We are now ready to do the grafting. Get 
a bundle of the roots and one of scions, put them on 
a table and take a comfortable seat before it. If they 
are diity or gritty, which is probable, they must be 
washed thoroughly. After untying the first thing is 
to cut them into proper lengths. The scions should 
be from five to six inches long and cut so that a 
strong bud will be at the top end of each and every 
one. This is important, because the growth of the 
future tree depends on a good bud near the top of 
the scion. A pattern may be seen in the center of 
■Fig. 331. It is well to make a lot of such cuts o^ 
short scions at once and have them ready, with the 
butts all turned one way. The seedling stocks should 
be cur off at the collar. This is sometimes done by 
chopping them while they are yet in the bundle, but 
I think they are too much bruised by such rough 
treatment and prefer to use pruning shears or a sharp 
knife, cutting one at a time or by small handfuls. All 
the side branches and fibrous roots should be trimmed 
off closely, leaving only the main or central part. 
There is a difference of opinion among good nursery¬ 
men and fruit growers as to the length of the piece 
of roots to be used for a single graft, but it is quite 
well proven that the upper five or six-inch cut of a 
good root is equal to or better than-a longer one. 1 
have found that cuts four inches are about as good 
as any other length. The lower or second and third 
cuts often make good grafts, but I prefer not to de¬ 
pend too much or not at all on them. 
FITTING THE GRAFTS.—Having prepared a lot 
of roots ready for the next part of the operation we 
can proceed to cut and fit the two parts together, one 
by one, or trim a lot of one or both before fitting them 
together, as may best suit the grafter. My preference 
is to trim a pile of scions, and then, when I trim a 
root fit a scion to it. This saves one handling of the 
root, over the other way. To trim the parts ready 
for their union, take a scion in the left hand and 
with the knife make a long sloping cut at its butt 
end, about an inch and a quarter long, and tapering 
to a point. This cut must not be haggled, but long, 
straight and smooth. Without dropping it cut a slit 
half an inch long, parallel to the cut just made, 
forming a tongue, and with its point a little below the 
middle of the slope, as seen in Fig. 331. The top end 
of the root is cut exactly the same way. 
JOINING.—Now they are ready to be joined. Try 
to put those together which are of equal size, so that 
they may fit well in all their cut edges. When a 
THREE PARTS OF ROOT GRAFTING. FlO. 331 
number have been thus fitted together they are ready 
for tying. It is a very easy thing to tie root grafts, 
and almost any child can soon learn to do it well. 
Take the graft by the scion end, holding it firmly in 
the palm, with the spliced part between the thumb 
and fore finger. Take the waxed thread in the right 
hand and put the end of it under the left thumb, to 
hold it fast while the thread is passed around the 
graft and made to bind down the end. Wind the 
thread or roll the graft in the left hand so as to bind 
the cut surfaces firmly together; and snap off the 
thread without tying it. The wax on it will hold it 
in pla.ce. This completes the job. It is simple enough 
and easy to do, and after a little practice it can be 
done well and quickly. But careful work should 
never be sacrificed for speed. The drawing, Fig. 33t 
has been made life size from a root which I grew in 
my back yard in Washington, from a rotten apple 
planted there last April, and a scion cut from an apple 
tree that stands not far away. Both are about typical 
in size and proportion of what a good root graft should 
be. Pear roots and scions may be root-grafted the 
same as those of the apple, but for some reason that 
I do not fully understand they are rarely used in this 
way by nurserymen. I have been told that they do 
not grow off so well, but this has not been my ex¬ 
perience with the few that I tried on one occasion. 
STORING.—After a quantity are made tie them into 
bundles of about 100 each; they can then be packed in 
layers in boxes without tying. They should be care¬ 
fully labeled with the name of the variety, and that 
without delay. Willow twigs are better for ties than 
strings, because they will not rot in the damp pack¬ 
ing and allow the varieties to get mixed. The pack¬ 
ing away until planting time is a very important and 
particular matter. Damp sawdust, wood mold and 
moss are all excellent packing material. Use an 
abundance of it, so the bundles or layers do not touch. 
It must be moist but not water-soaked. Put the boxes 
in a damp cool place, but where they will not freeze. 
See that rats do not dig into them nor that they are 
disturbed in any way until taken out and planted in 
nursery rows in early Spring. A very cool cellar is a 
good place. I have buried the boxes in the earth 
when I had no cellar at command. They will soon 
callus or knit together like broken bones that have 
been set by a good surgeon. 
PLANTING.—The ground should be rich, deeply 
plowed and finely pulverized. The grafts should be 
set as early as it is possible to get the ground in good 
order, and eight inches apart in rows four feet apart. 
With a line and dibble set them firmly, with only 
two inches of their tops above the surface. Cultivate 
thoroughly until late Summer. If all these things 
have been well done, something useful will have been 
learned, a lot of cheap trees made on the farm, and 
perhaps some fun thrown in for good measure. 
It. E. VAN DEMAX. 
HOW MILK IS MADE. 
The Wisconsin Experiment Station (Madison) has 
issued an interesting Bulletin (No. 96) giving the re¬ 
sults of some investigations regarding milking. It 
seems that in Denmark and Norway a new method 
of milking has been taught. After squeezing out the 
milk in the usual way various movements of the 
udder are made, and this appears to increase the se¬ 
cretion of milk so that more is obtained than by mere¬ 
ly pulling the teats. Before we describe these opera¬ 
tions we call attention to Fig. 330, which shows a sec¬ 
tion of a cow’s udder. By understanding where and 
how the milk is secreted we may get a better idea of 
the new milking methods. 
It will be seen that the udder is a spongy mass with 
many cavities or tubes—some of them too small to 
distinguish without a microscope. Above each teat 
is a “milk cistern” which seldom holds more than 
half a pint. To quote from the bulletin: 
From these, milk canals or ducts extend in all direc¬ 
tions and branch off; the farther up into the udder we 
go the finer the ducts are, until they can only be seen by 
means of a microscope. These fine milk ducts end in in¬ 
numerable small sack-like cavities called alveoli. It is 
in the latter that the manufacture of milk takes place. 
When milk is secreted the cells are greatly enlarged and 
swollen; when the cow is dry the cells are flattened out 
and sink together. When the milking begins the milk 
flows readily from the fine milk glands into the ducts 
and, as these come together to larger trunks, are united 
to drops of milk visible to the naked eye. It is well 
known that some cows will give down small squirts of 
strippings for a considerable time after a full flow ot 
milk has ceased. This milk is elaborated from the last 
portion of the milk-producing material which the alveoli 
have manufactured at the time of the milking. The for¬ 
mation of material from which milk is manufactured 
goes on all the time, according to our best present knowl¬ 
edge, but the process is especially active at the time of 
the milking. When the milking begins some of the milk 
is already elaborated; the greater portion of the milk is, 
however, most likely formed during the process of milk¬ 
ing from the material stored up in the alveoli during the 
interval since last milking. Toward the end of the milk¬ 
ing the flow of milk is much smaller than before, until it 
practically stops, unless continuous stripping is resorted 
to. It is the rich milk adhering to the cavities and ducts 
of the udder which is thus lost to the dairymen if" the 
milking is interrupted at the point when many milkers 
stop milking. By simple manipulations of the udder this 
portion of the milking can be easily obtained, and being 
very rich in butter fat and other milk solids, it will 
greatly improve the quality of the whole mess of milk if 
added thereto. 
FIGHTING RABBITS AND APPLE BORERS. 
What do practical fruit growers do to prevent rabbits 
and borers from injuring apple trees? 
A good dog and a shotgun is the best remedy we 
have, but not practical with everyone. I would use 
wire cloth, as this is the best all-Tound preventive, 
leaving it on the year around. We watch closely the 
outside of the tree for the appearance of the borers, 
and when we find them at work we dig them out with 
a wire, then cover the wound with earth and it will 
heal over. Some are using tobacco dust with good 
results against the borers, placing it close around 
the tree. e. t. j. 
Bocnville, Ind. 
The wire netting does not injure the trees where left 
on all Summer, and makes a good protection against 
rabbits. Our orchardists also use the veneer wood 
wrapper successfully. For borers I would recommend 
clean culture, soil kept away from base of tree enough 
to form a shallow basin so as to catch a little water 
when it rains during Spring and Summer, and going 
over carefully in May and September, take out the 
borers if any have gone in to the trees. Some washes 
are beneficial in keeping out borers, but it is not safe 
as a rule to depend on them. geo. t. tippix. 
Missouri. 
