On young or small stocks, like nursery trees, the cleft-graft is not practicable, and a different form of grafting is employed; but the teacher will not care to be confused with further details.
We have seen that a cutting may be reduced to a single bud; so may a cion. If the bud-cion has very little or no wood attached, and is inserted underneath the bark, the operation is known as budding. The commonest form of budding is shown in [Figs. 268], [269], [270]. This is the method known as shield-budding, because the bud, with its attached bark, is shield-shaped ([Fig. 268]). A T-shape incision is made in the stock, and under the bark the bud is inserted ([Fig. 269]); then the wound is tightly bound with soft cord or bast ([Fig. 270]). Budding may be performed whenever the bark will "slip" and when well grown buds can be secured,—that is, either in spring or late summer. It is usually performed at the latter season; and then the bud does not throw out a shoot the same season, but merely grows fast to the stock. The next spring it throws out a shoot and makes a trunk; and in the meantime the stock has been cut off just above the bud. That is, the bud-shoot takes the place of the top of the stock.
Fig. 270. The bud tied.
Shield-budding is performed only on small and young stocks. It is usually exclusively employed in the propagation of stone fruits, as cherries, peaches, plums, apricots, for experience has proved that it is preferable to other forms of grafting. It may also be employed for other fruit trees.
How is a peach tree made? In 1898 a pit or seed is saved. In the spring of 1899 it is planted. The young tree comes up quickly. In August, 1899, the little stock has one bud—of the desired variety—inserted near the ground. In the spring of 1900 the stock is severed just above the bud: the bud throws out a shoot which grows to a height of four or six feet; and in the fall of 1900 the tree is sold. It is known as a year-old tree; but the root is two years old.
How is an apple tree made? The seed is saved in 1898, planted in 1899. The seedlings do not grow so rapidly as those of the peach. At the end of 1899 they are taken up and sorted; and in the spring of 1900 they are planted. In July or August, 1900, they are budded. In the spring of 1901 the stock is cut off above the bud; and the bud-shoot grows three or four feet. In 1902 the shoot branches, or the top begins to form; and in the fall of 1902 the tree may be sold as a two-year-old, although most persons prefer to buy it in 1903 as a three-year-old. In some parts of the country, particularly in the west, the little seedling is grafted in the winter of 1899-1900 in a grafting-room; and the young grafts are set in the nursery row in the spring of 1900, to complete their growth.
I have now given my reader an elementary lesson in horticulture; but I shall consider it of little avail if it is not transformed into practice for the children. February is the gardener's time for the starting of his cutting-beds, in which to grow plants for the summer bloom. Ask the children to bring the old geraniums and fuchsias and coleus, and other favorites. Keep them in a warm window; cut them back; see that they are well watered; then take the cuttings when the time comes. The children will be interested to watch the fortunes of the different cuttings. They will be interested in Vergil's couplet, as set to rhyme in old-fashioned English:
Some need no root, nor doth the Gardner doubt, That Sprigs though headlong set, will timely sprout.