allowed to make a rapid growth so late in the season, there would be great danger of its being killed by frost. European cultivators are very fond of budding several varieties on one stock, in order to obtain the pretty effect produced by a contrast of color. This will only answer where great care is taken to select varieties of the same vegetating force; otherwise one will soon outstrip the others, and appropriate all the nourishment. It is also desirable that they should belong to the same species. When a bud is inserted in a plant in pot, as in fig. 12, the main branches are left, and a portion of the top only cut off, in order to give the bud some additional nourishment.

GRAFTING.

From the pithy nature of the wood of the Rose, grafting is always less certain than budding; but it is frequently adopted by cultivators, as budding cannot be relied upon in the spring, and as there is much wood from the winter pruning which would be otherwise wasted. It is also useful for working over those plants in which buds have missed the previous summer.

There are several modes of grafting, of which the most generally practiced is cleft-grafting. For this mode, the stock is cut off at the desired height with a sharp knife, either horizontally, or slightly sloping. The cut should be made just above a bud, which may serve to draw up the sap to the graft. The stock can then be split with a heavy knife, making the slit or cleft about an inch long. The cion should be about four inches long, with two or more buds upon it. An inch of the lower part of the cion can be cut in the shape of a wedge, making one side very thin, and on the thick or outer side, leaving a bud opposite to the top of the wedge. This cion can then be inserted in the cleft as far as the wedge is cut, being very careful to make the bark of the cion fit exactly to that of

the stock. In order to exclude the air, the top and side of the stock should then be bound with a strip of cloth covered with a composition of beeswax and resin in equal parts, with sufficient tallow to make it soft at a reasonably low temperature. In the course of two or three weeks,

if every thing is favorable, the cion will begin to unite, and will be ready to go forward with advancing vegetation. When the stock is sufficiently large, two cions can be inserted, as in fig. 13.

Whip-grafting is performed by cutting a slice of bark with a little wood from the side of a stock about an inch and a half long, and then paring a cion of the usual length down to a very thin lower extremity, as in fig. 14. This cion can then be accurately fitted on to the place from which

the slice of bark and wood is taken. The whole can then be bound around with cotton cloth, covered with the composition described before. In all grafting it should be borne in mind, that it is essential for the bark of the cion and that of the stock to touch each other in some point, and the more the points of contact, the greater will be the chance of success.

Rind-grafting is also sometimes practiced, but is more uncertain than the former, as the swelling of the stock is very apt to force the cion out. This mode must be practiced when the bark peels easily, or separates with ease from the wood. The top of the stock must be cut off square, and the bark cut through from the top about an inch downward. The point of the knife can then be inserted at the top, and the bark peeled back, as in a, fig. 15. It is desirable, as before, that a bud should be left on the other side of the stock, opposite this opening; and the French prefer, also, to have a bud left on the outside of the part of the cion which is inserted. The cion should be cut out and sloped flat on one side, as in b, fig. 15; then inserted in the stock between the bark and wood, as in c, and bound with mat-strings, or strips of grafting cloth.

b

שמורות

Fig. 15.-RIND GRAFTING.

The French have another mode of grafting stocks about the size of a quill or the little finger. It is done by placing the knife about two inches below a bud which is just on the point of starting, and cutting half way through the stock, and two inches down, as in fig. 16. The cion

is then placed in the lower part of this cavity, in the same manner as with cleft grafting. This mode is called Aspirant, from the bud above the incision, which continues

is

to draw up the sap, until the development of the cion. When the cion has grown about two inches, the top of the stock is cut off and covered with grafting wax. This mode is not always successful, as the sap sometimes leaves the side of the stock which has been partly cut away and passes up the other side.

The French have also a mode of grafting, which they call par incrustation, and which is performed in the spring, as soon as the leaf-buds appear. A cion with a bud adhering to the wood is cut in a sort of oval shape, and inserted in a cavity made of the same shape, and just below an eye which has commenced growing. It is then bound around with matting, as in budding. This

is a sort of spring budding, with rather more wood Fig. 16. attached to the bud, than in summer budding. It very successfully practiced by various cultivators in the vicinity of Paris. There is still another mode sometimes practiced in France, which owes its origin to a cultivator named Lecoq. A small branch is chosen, which is provided with two buds, one of them being on the upper part, and the other near its larger end. A sidelong sloping cut is made all along its lower half, the upper being left entire. When the cion is thus prepared, its cut side is fitted to the side of the stock under the bark, which has been cut and peeled back. It is then bound around with matstrings or grafting cloth in the usual way. This mode has a peculiar merit; should the upper bud not grow, the lower one rarely fails, and develops itself as in common budding.

Cleft and whip-grafting is also practiced occasionally upon the roots of the Rose, and succeeds very well with

some varieties. These modes of grafting can all be more successfully practiced on stocks in pots in green-houses with bottom heat and bell glasses. We have given thus concisely, and, we hope, clearly, the various modes of budding and grafting with which we are acquainted. They may be sufficient to enable the amateur to amuse his leisure hours, though his success may not entirely meet his expectations. Simple as these operations are, they require a kind of skill, and, if we may so call it, sleight-ofhand, which is only attained by constant practice upon a great number of plants.