Whichever of these modes of grafting is adopted, the graft must be fastened in its place by tying, for which purpose a strand of bast-matting is commonly used. The access of air is further prevented by means of clay, which has been worked up with a little chopped hay, horse or cow citing and water, and which is applied to the place of junction so as to form a ball, tapering both upwards and downwards. In France, a composition of 28 parts black pitch, 28 Burgundy pitch, 16 yellow wax, 14 tallow, and '14 sifted ashes, is generally used instead of clay. Gutta-percha, applied in a soft state, has also been used, or even blotting-paper held fast by strips of sticking-plaster. The progress of the buds shows the union of the graft and stock, but it is not generally safe to remove the clay in less than three months; and the ligatures, although then loosened, are allowed to remain for some time longer. From some kinds of fruit-trees, fruit is often obtained in the second year after grafting.
Budding (q.v.) is in principal the same as grafting; and is a kind of budding in which a ring of bark is used instead of a single bud, and a stock of similar thickness having been cut over, a ring of bark is removed, and the foreign one substi tuted. This is commonly performed in spring, when the bark parts readily, and is one of the surest modes of (q.v.), or grafting by approach, in which the scion is not cut off from its parent stem until it is united to the new stock, is practiced chiefly ih the case of some valuable shrubs, kept in pots, in which the ordin ary methods is very doubtful.
- An effect is produced by the stock on the scion which it nourishes analogous to that of a change of soil; much of the vigor of a strong healthy stock is also communicated to a scion taken even from an aged tree. There is moreover, in some degree, an influence of the elaborated sap descending from the scion on the stock which supports it. An important part of the practical skill of the gardener or nurseryman consists in the selection of the proper kinds of stocks for different species and varieties of fruit trees. The stock and scion, however, must not be of species extremely dissimilar. No credit is due to the statements of ancient authors about vines grafted on fig-trees, apples on planes, etc., the semblance of which can only have been brought about by some 'for all attempts at graftinrfail except among plants of the same il genus, or at least of the samo Herbaceous plants with firm stems, as dahlias, are sometimes grafted. Some kinds of plants, of small size, in pots, are placed in moist hothouses or hotbeds, under bell glasses, whilst the junction of the scion and stock is going on, which in these circum stances takes place very, surely and very expeditiously. But an accumulation of too much moisture under the bell-glass must be guarded against.