“Grafting by approach is an excellent method to apply whenever in the arrangement of a fruit-tree’s branches there is a vacant space that needs filling. Regular distribution, symmetry of arrangement, is a condition demanded if only to satisfy the eye, which is always offended by disorder; but there is another and still more convincing reason for this regularity. The more evenly a tree’s branches are distributed, so that each shall receive an equal share of sap, sunlight, and heat, so much the more fruit will it bear. Suppose, then, there is a lack of branches in some part. To fill this gap and thus restore the tree’s symmetry, grafting by approach offers a ready means. From a branch near the vacant space and itself sufficiently supplied with twigs or shoots, one of these latter, of good length, is selected; then it is properly cut or gashed and the gash is brought into contact with a similar gash at the point where it is desired to start a new growth; and, finally, a ligature is applied to hold the two parts together. As soon as coalescence is complete the graft is severed below the point of union, and the lower section, after being straightened up again, is ready to serve once more as branch to the limb that bears it. In this way, with no loss to themselves, the more abundant branches furnish offshoots to the poorer ones. “Grafting by means of shoots or scions cut from the parent stock at the outset is analogous to slipping. It consists in transplanting on to a new stock a shoot detached from its mother branch. The most common method is cleft-grafting. It is done in the spring when the buds begin to open. Shoots of the preceding year are chosen for grafts, care being taken to select those that are vigorous and that have attained no later than August the hard and woody condition necessary for resistance to the severities of winter. One precaution at the very outset must be taken. When the graft is put in place it will be of the utmost importance that it shall find in its new position nourishment proportionate to its needs. It would infallibly perish if it should prove to be in a more advanced state of vegetation than the stock selected to nourish it. The latter, therefore, ought to be rather ahead of than behind the former in this respect. To secure this result, between one and two months before the operation is to be carried out it is well to cut the grafts and place them in the ground on the north side of a wall, where they will remain quiescent while the branches to which they are to be transferred will make progress and their sap will start.