CHINESE METHOD OF PROPAGATING FllUIT TKEES. 55 
this country was first pointed out to me by Sir Lauchlan 
MacLean, of Sudbury. The Italians often adopt the plan; and 
I have seen a large orange tree, 14 feet high, loaded with 
growing fruit, thus separated from the aged parent stock, and 
exposed for sale in the market at Naples. I have witnessed 
the plan in full operation near the royal observatory in that 
city. One obvious advantage is, that no time is lost in the 
growth of the tree; nay, the very abstraction of the ring of 
bark from the branch rather expedites than otherwise the evo- 
lution of fruit. — The Italians have improved on the rude plan 
of the Chinese, by enclosing in a tin case the stem of the fu- 
ture independent tree: it is filled with earth, pressed down and 
covered with moss, which is preserved moist in the way I 
have already described. This part of it I have improved, by 
suspending the tin vessel which contains the water on an ad- 
joining branch above the ball, while a woollen thread pre- 
viously moist, forms a line of communication, and affords a 
constant regular supply on the principle of the syphon, and 
the capillary attraction of the fibres of the thread. A lid pre- 
vents the loss by evaporation from the surface of the water 
confined in the vessel. 
A linear incision in the bark above a bud, it has been stated, 
will convert that bud into a branch. Last season I tried seve- 
ral experiments of this kind on a fig, cutting out a narrow 
strip of bark, over the bud, in the form of an inverted V, and 
succeeded in producing branches in five out of seven instances. 
The want of success in these two, I suspect, arose from the 
imperfect separation of the lips of the bark, and the insuffi- 
cient depth of the incision. 
J. MUKKAY. 
