Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting: Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting: Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
These illustrations should make the method self-explanatory.
_Knives for Patch-budding._
Two sorts of knives are used for patch-budding, the double one for
making the parallel cuts and the ordinary budding knife for removing the
patch.
_Cambium._
Professor Bailey, in his "Encyclopedia of Horticulture," says, "The ways
and fashions of grafting are legion. There are as many ways as there are
ways of whittling. The operator may fashion the union of stock and scion
to suit himself if only he apply cambium to cambium, make a close joint
and properly protect the work."
The fundamental basis of the whole science of grafting is cambium. What
then is this important substance by means of which one plant may be made
to live and grow and produce on the roots of another? If we strip off
the bark of any actively growing, woody plant we will find just beneath
a soft, colorless substance; this substance is cambium. It feels slimy
to the touch and if scraped with the finger nail a little doughy mass
can be raised. As we examine it it will be seen to quickly darken to
cream color, then to yellow and finally to dark brown. A change has
taken place in it in a few seconds, right under our eyes. When we first
exposed it, it was living, active and capable of building the most
complicated of plant structures; now it is dead, inert and impotent. If
we examine the smallest portion of this doughy mass under a compound
microscope we will find it not merely slime but a highly organized
tissue made up of countless minute cells, each with a delicate wall
about it and containing a thickish liquid (protoplasm). The cambium
cells are brick-shaped, and are placed end to end, with layer
overlapping layer, like bricks in the wall of a building. The
microscopic structure of cambium tissue gives us a clearer conception of
its extreme delicacy. It is one of the most sensitive and delicate
substances in all nature. Exposure to the air will kill it and
completely destroy its functions in a few seconds. It is easily crushed
by slight pressure and quickly killed by exposure to drying, frost,
moisture and sunlight. Nature shows her extreme care of it for in making
bark she has formed for the delicate cambium a perfect protective
covering. Like the cambium the bark is composed of cells, as in fact are
all animal and vegetable structures. But the cells of the bark have
thick walls of a tough, corky substance, and each cell contains air
instead of protoplasm. The corkiness of the bark makes it an impervious,
waterproof covering that does not allow the cambium to be dried out or
to be washed by external moisture. The air in the bark cells being in a
still condition is a non-conductor of heat, and layer of bark
overlapping layer, the cambium is completely covered with a dead-air
blanket. This keeps it from being frozen in winter and from being
overheated in summer, just as a dead-air space in the walls of a
building protects from extremes of heat and cold. From this it is plain
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