The advantages of propagating by budding may be summed up in the following remarks, which are presented even at the risk of some repetition. This favorite method of multiplying varieties has some advantages over grafting, and is by many preferred on account of the facility with which it can be performed, and because it affords a means of increasing sorts in the nursery that have not been grafted, and of filling up gaps in the rows where grafts have missed; and it has been reported, that budded trees of certain varieties were more hardy than those which had been root-grafted. The objections, if such they can be called, are, that the period of performing the operation is limited, and that the young shoots from the buds generally have a curve that makes a crook or blemish in the tree when it goes from the nursery--neither of these objections constitute any real difficulty; on the contrary, the advantages quite over-balance them: as already suggested, it is a good plan for double-working certain varieties. The season for budding is at the period when the longitudinal growth of the stock is nearly completed, and when the wood-forming process is most active, so that the bark will part most freely from the wood--in other words, while the stock is still quite active in its circulation, but has, in a measure, made its growth. The scions used must have so far completed their growth for the season as to have filled their buds handsomely, but yet be so young as to allow the wood to part freely from the bark of the shields when they are cut. Those who desire to bud early, may accelerate the development of the buds by nipping off the points of the shoots to be used, this, in a few days, causes the buds to swell. The season of budding will thus depend upon the high culture of the nursery, and upon the condition of the trees from which the scions of buds are to be cut. Budding should never be done unless the stock is in perfectly good condition, if otherwise, it is labor lost. The old writers recommended damp, cloudy, or even showery weather; but under our bright summer skies our large establishments would never be able to dispose of their work, were they to wait for such suitable weather. Fortunately it is not found necessary to select such a season, but the greatest success attends the budding that is done in fine bright and even hot weather. The scions should be kept wrapped in a damp cloth, excluded from the rapid evaporation to which they would be subjected if exposed--this is better than to keep them in water, which exhausts them by dilution of the sap they contain. The scions should have their leaves removed, so soon as they are cut from the tree; this is done with a knife or the thumb nail, leaving a short piece of the leaf-stalk for convenience when inserting the buds.