CHAP. CXIII.

coni'eeiue. ^bie'tin.®.

2129

at a certain season, is of service, although by no means when the cuttings arefirst put in. I would recommend the cuttings, for the first five or six weeks,to be covered with a bell-glass, and placed in a shady part of any house orpit where the thermometer generally stands at about 60°; after which they mayhave a little bottom heat, which may be increased until they are rooted. It isdoubted by many, whether plants of Conifer®, raised from cuttings, will everform leaders, like seedling plants, unless a leader be selected for the cutting.I can only say that all I have raised have formed good leaders, and many ofthem have grown 6 in. this season (1837). The following are the specieswhich I have raised from cuttings : — Plnus sylvdstris, halepensis, Cembra,excelsa, and monticola; M'bies excelsa, nigra , Pichta, Smith iana (Morinda),Menziesii, Douglasii, and Clanbrasilinna ; Picea pectinata , ndbilis, Webb idna,and amabilis; iarix microearpa; Cedrus Libani and Deoddra; Cunninghamiasinensis; Araucaria imbricata.”

By Grafting . The application of this mode of propagation to the pine andfir tribe was first made by the Baron Tschoudy, probably about the end ofthe last century; and was practised by him on his estate at Colombey, nearMetz, and in the Botanic Garden of that city. It is described at lengthin various works, of which one of the latest is the Traite Pratique of Dela-marre, p. 138. 142.; the essence of which is as follows:—The species intendedto be united should be as nearly allied as possible; for, though the pinaster,and the P. Pinea may be grafted on the P. sylvestris , and the cedar on thelarch, yet it is preferable (because the grafts succeed better, and the treesproduced are likely to last longer) to graft species which are evergreens onevergreen stocks, and those with the leaves in bundles on stocks not only withthe leaves also in bundles, but with the same number of leaves in each bundle.P . Pinea is found to succeed remarkably well on P. maritima, and P. Cembraon P. iStrobus. The operation of herbaceous grafting is performed in the cleftmanner; the slit being made a little deeper than that part of the scion which isto be inserted in it. The time of performing the operation is when the leadingshoot of the stock has attained the length of from 8 in. to 12 in., and willbreak over (without tearing the bark) like a piece of glass, or the mostsucculent part of a shoot of asparagus fit to gather for the table. The timeduring which any given species has its leading shoot in a fit state for beingbroken over in this manner is not more than 15 days; and, as the scions fromthe species to be grafted are equally tender with the stock, they will not remainlonger in a state fit for the operation than about the same period. The graft isalways inserted in the leading shoot; the greater number of the side shootsare either removed altogether, or shortened; and the young shoots producedhom the stocks during the season are pinched off with the finger and thumbat about half their length. In performing the operation, the first step is tobreak over the leading shoot with the hand, so as to reduce it to the lengthot from 4 in. to 6 in.; the leaves are next removed from this remainingportion, with the exception of about an inch at the top, on which they arekit for the purpose of drawing up the sap. The scions should have beenprocured the same day or the evening before, from the extremity of thebranches of the kinds to be grafted; and they should be preserved in a vessel°t water, and covered with grass or leaves to exclude the sun. The scionsneed not be above 2 in. in length; the lower half of which should be deprivedY ts j ea X. es > an d cut in the form of a thin wedge, the operator using a veryar p knife. The scion should be rather narrower than the stock, in order thatmay be more completely tied into it, which is done by a ligature of matting, orslbhl n After bids is done, the graft is covered with a cornet of paper,

Sntly tied to the stock, so as to exclude the sun, but yet admit the air.

^ rom 10 to 15 days after grafting, the cornet may be taken away ; aboutmn S J ater t ^ e dg ature may be removed; and in six weeks or twobe t' a “ erwar d s > the upper part of the stock left with the leaves on maybee rimm P^ °d on both sides of the scion, and all the shoots which haven produced on the lower part of the stock removed, so as to throw the

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