multiplying lactescent, resinous, and hard-wooded trees, which refuse to obey more common methods. Baron de Tschudy succeeded in this way in working the Melon on the Bryony (both Cucurbitaceous plants), the Artichoke on the Cardoon (both Cynaras), Tomatoes on Potatoes (both Solanums), and so on. The following account of managing Coniferæ, where herbaceous grafting is used, is taken from the Gardener's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 64., and sufficiently explains the practice:

"The proper time for grafting pines is when the young shoots have made about three quarters of their length, and are still so herbaceous as to break like a shoot of asparagus. The shoot of the stock is then broken off about two inches under its terminating bud; the leaves are stripped off from twenty to twenty-four lines down from the extremity, leaving, however, two pairs of leaves op

31

posite, and close to the section of fracture, which leaves are of great importance. The shoot is then split with a very thin knife between the two pairs of leaves (fig. 31. a), and to the depth of two inches. The scion is then prepared (b): the lower part, being stripped of its

leaves to the length of two inches, is cut, and inserted in the usual manner of cleft-grafting. They may also be grafted in the lateral manner (c). The graft is tied with a slip of woollen, and a cap of paper is put over the whole, to protect it from the sun and rain. At the end of fifteen days this cap is removed, and the ligature at the end of a month; at that time also the two pairs of leaves (a), which have served as nurses, are removed. The scions of those sorts of pines which make two growths in a season, or, as the technical phrase is, have a second sap, produce a shoot of five or six inches in the first year but those of only one sap, as the Corsican Pine, Weymouth Pine, &c., merely ripen the wood grown before grafting, and form a strong terminating bud, which in the following year produces a shoot of fifteen inches, or two feet."

With regard to INARCHING, which was probably the most ancient kind of grafting, because it is that which must take place accidentally in thickets and forests, it differs from grafting in this, that the scion is not severed from its parent, but remains attached to it until it has united to the stock to which it is tied and fitted in various ways; the scion and stock are therefore mutually independent of each other, and the former lives upon its own resources, until the union is completed.

In practice, a portion of the branch of a scion is pared away, well down into the alburnum; a cor

responding wound is made in the branch of a stock; tongues are made in each wound so that they will fit into each other; and the liber and alburnum of the two being very accurately adjusted, the whole are firmly bound up; grafting clay is applied to the wound, and the plants operated upon are carefully shaded; in course of time the wounds unite, and then the scion is severed from its parent. Gardeners consider this the most certain of all the modes of grafting, but it is troublesome, and only practised in difficult cases. The circumstances most conducive to its success are, to stop the branch of both stock and scion under operation, so as to obtain an accumulation of sap, and to arrest the flow of sap upwards; to moderate the

motion of the fluids by shading; to head back the stock as far as the origin of the scion, as soon as the union is found to be complete; and at the same time to retrench from the scion a part of its buds and leaves, so that there may not be a a too rapid demand upon the stock, while the line of union is still imperfectly consolidated.

A method of propagating Camellias (fig. 32.), by putting the end or heel of a scion into a vessel of water, mentioned in the Gardener's Magazine, ii. 33., is essentially the same as inarching.

The water communicated to the scion through the wounded end supplies it with that food which, under natural circumstances, would be derived from the roots of the plant to which it belongs.

CHAP. XIII.

OF PRUNING.

"La taille est une des opérations les plus importantes et les plus délicates du jardinage. Confiée communément à des ouvriers peu instruits, observée dans les résultats d'une pratique trop souvent irréfléchie, elle a dû nécessairement trouver des détracteurs même parmi les physiologistes. Il en eût sans doute été autrement, si on l'avait étudiée dans les jardins du petit nombre de praticiens qui ont su de nos jours la bien comprendre. Sagement basée sur les lois de la végétation, elle contribue, entre leurs mains, non seulement à régulariser la production des fruits, à en obtenir de plus beaux, mais encore à prolonger l'existence et la fécondité des arbres,"

Nothing can be more just than these words, addressed to the Horticultural Society of Paris, by their President, M. Héricart de Thury; and, if

they do not apply with as much force to our gardeners as to those of France, they do most fully to our foresters.

The quantity of timber that a tree forms, the amount and quality of its secretions, the brilliancy of its colours, the size of its flowers, and, in short, its whole beauty, depend upon the action of its branches and leaves, and their healthiness (64.). The object of the pruner is to diminish the number of leaves and branches; whence it may be at once understood how delicate are the operations he has to practise, and how thorough a knowledge he ought to possess of all the laws which regulate the action of the organs of vegetation. If well directed, pruning is one of the most useful, and, if ill-directed, it is among the most mischievous, operations that can take place upon a plant.

When a portion of a healthy plant is cut off, all that sap which would have been expended in supporting the part removed is directed into the parts which remain, and more especially into those in the immediate vicinity of it. Thus, if the leading bud of a growing branch is stopped, the lateral buds, which would otherwise have been dormant, are made to sprout forth; and, if a growing branch is shortened, then the very lowest buds, which seldom push, are brought into action: hence the necessity, in pruning, of cutting a useless branch clean