316

PRACTICAL MANNER OF

bloom is lost. The grafts that I find to succeed the best, are younggrowing shoots, about one and a half or two inches long. I pare off the outer skin or bark for about half-an-inch at the base of the graft, and cut what is intended to be inserted into the stock in the shape of a wedge; I then make an incision in the angles or top of the stock, with a pointed stick made the same shape as the scion. When the grafts are first put in, to prevent their slipping out, I pass through each a small wooden peg or the spine of a thorn; I then cover each with a small piece of moss, and place them in a shady damp house, and syringe them over the tops occasionally in the evening; they will all adhere to the stocks in ten days or a fortnight, and make good plants by winter. By engrafting the finest kinds of Cacti on the stocks that I recommend above, noble specimens can be grown in a few years from one to ten feet. high if required; and the size and colour of the blooms are much superior to what they ever produce when grown on their own roots. E. truncatum by the above treatment becomes quite a hardy greenhouse plant, and will bloom three months later than it does when grown in the stove on its own roots in the usual way.”

Mr. Henry Ford, another successful grower, gives the following detailed account of his practice :-"Last year, having several plants of Pereskia aculeata, from eight to ten feet high, which had previously been grafted at the top with Cereus flagelliformis, I inserted at various heights upon the latter grafts of different kinds of Epiphyllum, such as Ackermanni and truncatum, with Cereus speciosus and C. triumphans. The beauty in June last of a plant of this kind which had been grafted in the previous autumn I cannot describe. In grafting them, I make, with the point of the knife, an incision upwards, into which I insert small grafts, pared a little on both sides, of the kinds required. A small piece of matting is bound round the wounded stem, to keep the grafts tight until they have taken hold, which generally is the case in three weeks' time; the bast is then untied. Where room is no object, I think it preferable to graft E. truncatum upon specimens by itself, as it flowers in the autumn, whereas the other kinds bloom in the spring and summer. The pendulous habit of Cereus flagelliformis allows of its being trained in any form, according to the fancy of the owner. I have grafted Cacti at all seasons of the year, but I find that the best time is from the end of September until November; probably owing to the plants being in a more dormant state. I apply no fire to the house during this period, unless to dry up damp or exclude frost. One specimen of Pereskia aculeata, nine feet high, which was grafted two years ago with E. truncatum, the grafts being inserted three inches apart, along the whole height of the stem, and alternately on each side, has now the appearance of a pillar, and in about six weeks' time will be covered with many hundred flowers. It is advisable in grafting these plants

to insert the scion upside down, especially if worked upon the main stem; in which case I remove a small piece of the bark from the stock, and fit a thin piece of the desired kind upon it. If this is bound up so

as to prevent air from entering between the parts, it will take quite as well as if grafted in the usual way. Where this operation is performed upon spurs, the latter should be trained downwards previously to

being grafted, otherwise the grafts, especially those with fleshy leaves, are apt to break off when they attain to any size. I have also grafted E. truncatum upon a stock of Cactus braziliensis, which makes an excellent standard, as from its robust habit it does not require any support. E. truncatum succeeds better if suspended, with a ball of earth about its roots, in a wire basket filled with moss, than when grown in a pot."

The brilliant effect produced by plants treated in this manner may be judged of from the accompanying sketch (Fig. XLIX.) of a specimen growing in the year 1847, in the garden of Mrs. Huskisson of Eartham, where it had been made by Mr. Webster, her Gardener.

A far better method than whip-grafting, but more tedious, is saddle-grafting, in which the stock is pared obliquely on both sides, till it becomes an inverted wedge, and the scion is slit up the centre, after which its sides are pared down till they fit the sides of the stock. In this method the greatest possible quantity of cellular surface is brought into contact, and the parts are mutually so adjusted, that the ascending sap is freely received from the stock by the scion, while, at the same time, the descending sap can flow freely from the scion into the stock. Mr. Knight, in describing this mode of operating, has the following observations :

"The graft first begins its efforts to unite itself to the stock just at the period when the formation of a new internal layer of bark commences in the spring; and the fluid which generates this layer of bark, and which also feeds the inserted graft, radiates in every direction from the vicinity of the medulla to the external surface of the alburnum. The graft is, of course, most advantageously placed when it presents the largest surface to receive such fluid, and when the fluid itself is made to deviate least from its natural course. This takes place most efficiently when (as in this saddle-grafting) a graft of nearly equal size with the stock is divided at its base and made to stand astride the stock, and when the two divisions of the graft are pared extremely thin, at and near their lower extremities, so that they may be brought into close contact with the stock (from which but little bark or wood should be pared off) by the ligature." (Hort. Trans., v. 147.) To execute saddle-grafting properly, the scion and stock should be of equal size; and

where that cannot be, a second method, in which the scion may be much smaller than the stock, has been described by the same great gardener. This (Fig. L.) is practised upon small stocks almost exclusively in Herefordshire; but it is

Fig. L.

never attempted till the usual season of grafting is past, and till the bark is readily detached from the alburnum. The head of the stock is then taken off, by a single stroke of the knife, obliquely, so that the incision commences about the width of the diameter of the stock below the point where the medulla appears in the section, and ends as much above it, upon the opposite side. The scion, or graft, which should not exceed in diameter half that of the stock, is then to be divided longitudinally, about two inches upwards from its lower end, into two unequal divisions, by passing the knife upwards, just in contact with one side of the medulla. The stronger division of the graft is then to be pared thin at its lower extremity, and introduced, as in crown-grafting, between the bark and wood of the stock; and the more slender division is fitted to the stock upon the opposite side. The graft, con

sequently, stands astride the stock, to which it attaches itself firmly upon each side, and which it covers completely in a single season. Grafts of the Apple and Pear rarely ever fail in this method of grafting, which may be practised with equal success with young wood in July, as soon as it has become moderately firm and mature.

What is called herbaceous grafting, depends entirely upon the same principles as common grafting. When two vigorous branches cross each other, and press together so as not to move, they will often form an organic union; if two apples press together, or if two cucumbers are forced to grow side by side in a space so small as to compel them to touch each other firmly, they also will grow together; herbaceous grafting is merely an application to practice of this power of soft and cellular parts to unite.

The theory of grafting is explained by those natural operations in which the process is performed by plants themselves, silently and unobserved; in which a leaf is grafted to leaf to form a flower, or leaf-edges to form a fruit. This process, which never misses, which is perfect in its result, and which effects such a surprising change in the whole appearance of the parts operated on, takes place when the tissues are in their earliest and most tender condition; when the substance of the plant is more pulpy than firm, and when the growing parts are compelled to press against each other in consequence of the narrow space in which they lie. It is clearly therefore the business of the grafter to execute his task also when the tissues are as young as he can work upon; and at all events before they become hardened by the process of lignification. This is really at the very moment when buds are bursting in the spring. If at that time the naked surface of two young shoots, just lengthening, were brought in contact with sufficient skill, we doubt not that the most perfect possible joint would be the immediate result. But this practice is opposed in the spring by difficulties which we do not as yet know how to surmount, and therefore recourse is had to parts much older, and yet young enough to form an adhesion; and as young tissue is continually growing in the inner bark of all branches