Gourds are valuable as rapid-growing screen vines, the curious fruits of many varieties adding much to their attractiveness. Cultivation the same as for melons or squashes. Height 10 to 15 feet. Provide a chicken-wire trellis; or let them run on a brush pile.
Grafting. Grafting is the operation of inserting a piece of a plant into another plant with the intention that it shall grow. It differs from the making of cuttings in the fact that the severed part grows in another plant rather than in the soil. There are two general kinds of Grafting—one of which inserts a piece of branch in the stock (Grafting proper), and one which inserts only a bud with little or no wood attached (budding). In both cases the success of the operation depends upon the growing together of the cambium of the cion (or cutting) and that of the stock. The cambium is the new and growing tissue which lies underneath the bark and on the outside of the growing wood. Therefore, the line of demarcation between the bark and the wood should coincide when the cion and stock are joined. The plant upon which the severed piece is set is called the stock. The part which is removed and set into the stock is called a cion if it is a piece of a branch, or a bud if it is only a single bud with a bit of tissue attached. The greater part of Grafting and budding is done when the cion or bud is nearly or quite dormant. That is, Grafting is usually done late in winter and early in spring, and budding may be done then, or late in summer, when the buds have nearly or quite matured.
The bud severed from its twig
The prime object of Grafting is to perpetuate a kind of plant which will not reproduce itself from seed or of which seed is very difficult to obtain. Cions or buds are therefore taken from this plant and set into whatever kind of plant is obtainable and on which they will grow. Thus, if one wants to propagate the Baldwin apple, he does not for that purpose sow seeds thereof, but takes cions or buds from the tree and grafts them into some other apple tree. The stocks are usually obtained from seeds. In the case of the apple, young plants are raised from seeds which are obtained mostly from cider factories, without reference to the variety from which they came. When the seedlings have grown to a certain age, they are budded or grafted; and thereafter they bear fruit like that of the tree from which the cions were taken.
The bud tied
The bud inserted
