72. What is called shoulder or chef* grafting, was for merly much more frequently employed than it is now. The head of the stock being first cut off horizontally, one side of it is then sloped. The graft is sloped in the same man ner, and a shoulder left at the point where the sloping be gins. This shoulder is applied to the horizontal head of the stock, and the bark is brought to join at each edge, if possible. Another old method of grafting was called tere bration, or peg grafting : the head of the stock was cut off horizontally, and a hole was bored in the centre of it ; the graft was selected of equal bole with the stock ; within an inch and a half of the lower end of the graft, a circular in cision was made, and the bark and a great part of the wood were removed, leaving only a peg to fit the hole bored in the stock.
Cions for Grafts.
73. The dons are gathered a good many weeks before the season for grafting arrives: the reason is, that expe rience has shewn, that grafting may most successfully be performed, by allowing the stock to have some advantage over the graft in forwardness of vegetation. It is desirable that the sap of the stock should be in brisk motion at the time of grafting; but by this time, the buds of the cion, if left on the parent tree, would be equally advauced ; whereas the cions, being gathered early, the buds are kept back, and ready only to swell out when the graft is placed on the stock. Cions of pears, plums, and cherries, are collected in the end of January or beginning of February. They arc kept at full length, sunk in dry earth, and out of the reach of frost, till wanted, which is some time from the middle of February to the middle of March. Cions of apples arc collected any time in February, and put on from the middle to the end of March. The selecting of proper cions is a matter of the greatest importance, if we wish to enjoy the full advantage which may be derived from grafting. They should be taken from a healthy tree in full bearing, and from the outer side of the horizontal branches of such a tree, where the wood has freely enjoyed the benefit of sun and air. It is however the observation of a judicious prac tical gardener, Mr James Smith, at Hopetoun House, that particular notice should be taken, whether the tree to be grafted from be in a luxuriant or in a debilitated state. If the former be its condition, the grafts are very properly ta ken from the extremities of bearing'branches ; but if it be in the latter predicament, the most healthy shoots in the centre of the tree should be resorted to ; and if no proper shoots exist, the amputation of some central branches will quickly tend to produce them. The least reflection nitist convince every one, how extremely improper it must be to take cions from young trees in the nursery lines, as is too often done. It may be remarked, that the middle of the
cion generally affords the best graft.
Budding.
74. Budding, or inoculating, as it is sometimes, though not very correctly, called, depends on the same principle as grafting, the only difference between a bud and a graft being, that a bud is a shoot in embryo. On this account, grafted trees usually produce fruit two seasons earlier than budded trees : but those kinds of trees that arc apt to throw out gum are not grafted without difficulty, while they are readily propagated by budding ; such are, the peach and nectarine, the apricot, the cherry, and the plum; the cherry, however, being occasionally grafted, and the plum not unfrcquently. In the case of both these sorts of fruit trees, there is another reason for preferring budding, —that gum is apt to exude at the places necessarily cut in performing the process of grafting. Budding is performed any time from the beginning of July to the middle of Au gust, at which period the buds for next year are complete ly formed in the axilla of the leaf of the present year, and they are known to be ready by their parting from the wood. The buds preferred are the shortest observed on the middle of a young shoot, on the outside of a healthy and fruitful tree ; on no account should an immature tree, or a bad bearer, be resorted to for buds. For gathering the shoots containing the buds, a cloudy clay, or an early or late hour, are chosen, it being thought that shoots gathered in full sunshine perspire so much as to drain the moisture from the buds. The buds should be used as soon after be ing gathered as possible, and the whole operation should be quickly performed.
In taking off the bud, the knife is inserted about half an inch above it, and a th5in slice of the bark and wend along with it taken off, bringing out the knife about an inch and a half below the bud. (Plate CCCIX. Fig. 5. a.) This lower part is afterwards shortened and dress( d ; and the leaf is cut off, the stalk being left about half an inch long. (Fig. 5. b.) Perhaps it is better to insert the knife three quarters of an inch below the bud, and to cut upwards; at least this mode is practised in the Scottish nurseries. The portion of wood is then taken out, by raising it from the bark, and pulling it downwards or upwards, according as the cut has been made from above or below. if the extrac tion of the wood occasion a hole at the bud, that bud is spoilt, and another most be prepared in its stead ; as gar deners speak, the root of the bud has gone with the wood, instead of remaining with the bark. It is to he noticed, that the bud, and the portion of bark above and below it, receive together from gardeners, simply the name of a bud.