“We will suppose there is a worthless pear-tree in our garden, grown from a pip or transplanted from its native wood, and we propose to make it bear good pears. The course to pursue is as follows. We cut off entirely the upper part of the wild pear tree, trimming the cut with our pruning-knife so that there are no ragged edges, since these would not scar over readily and might become the seat of a far-reaching decay. If the trunk is of moderate size and is to receive but one graft, it is cut a little obliquely with a small level surface on the upper edge, as shown in the picture. In the middle of this horizontal facet a split is made to the depth of about six centimeters. That done, we take one of the grafts set aside as already indicated, and we cut it so as to leave only two or three buds, of which the topmost one should be at the tip of the branch. Then, just under the lowest bud we whittle the end of the graft into the shape of a knife-blade, letting the bud stand just above the back or dull edge of the blade. For greater stability when the graft is put in place, a narrow inverted ledge is cut at the top of the blade on both sides. A glance at the picture will show you all these little details. Finally, the graft is slipped into the cleft of the stock, bark exactly meeting bark, wood meeting wood. The whole is brought tightly together by binding, and the wounds are covered with grafting mastic, which may be bought already prepared. If this mastic is lacking we can use what is known in the country as Saint Fiacre’s ointment, a sort of paste made of clay, or rather a mixture of clay and cows’ dung, the fibrous nature of the latter preventing the former from cracking. A winding of rags holds the ointment in place. Thus wound, the stump does not suffer from exposure to the air, which would dry it up. In course of time the wounds cicatrize, and the bark and wood of the graft coalesce with the bark and wood of the severed trunk. Finally the buds of the graft, nourished by the stock, develop into branches and at the end of a few years the top of the wild pear tree is replaced by that of a cultivated pear tree bearing pears equal to those of the tree that furnished the graft.