BUDDING, sometimes called INOCULATION, is an operation analogous to Grafting (q.v.), or indeed may be regarded as merely a particular mode of grafting, in which a leaf-bud is used as a graft instead of a young shoot. It is generally preferred for trees which are apt to throw out much gum when wounded, as the plum, cherry, peach, apricot, and stone-fruits in general, also for roses and many other flowering shrubs. The time for it is when the bud is perfectly formed, about or a little after midsuminer. The bud to be employed is taken, by means of a sharp knife, from the branch on which it has grown—generally a branch of the former year—a small portion of the bark and young wood being taken with it, extending to about half an inch above and three quar ters of an inch below the bud. The woody part is then separated from the bark and bud; but care is to be taken that the bud itself is not injured, which, however, is always the case when the operation is attempted before the bud is sufficiently matured, and is indicated by a hollow left at the bud when the wood has been removed. A longitudinal and a transverse cut are made in the bark of the stock intended to receive the bud, in tne form of the letter T; the bark is raised on both sides, for which purpose the handle of the generally terminates in a thin ivory blade, and the bud is inserted, the bark attached to the bud being cut across so as to join exactly to the transverse cut in that of the stock, that the bud may be nourished by the descending sap. The leaf in
the axil of which the bud grew is cut off. The newly-inserted bud is for a time pre served in its place, and prevented from too much access of air by strands of bass-mat ting. The process just described is distinctively called and is the most common method of budding. Other methods are occasionally employed, as reversed in which the incisions are in the form of the letter T reversed, which is. sometimes practiced with trees of the orange family and others in which there is a very great flow of descending sap; and in which a thin slip of bark is removed from the stock. and a similar slip bearing the bud is placed upon it, the upper edge and one of the lateral edges being made to fit exactly. Scallop-budding may be performed in spring, and if it fails, the ordinary method may be resorted to in slimmer. 13. is also sometimes performed by taking a tube of bark with one or more buds from a small branch, and placing it upon a branch of similar thickness in the stock, from which the bark has been removed.