The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life RationallyLoudon, Mrs. (Jane)
General
The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally
Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Cooking; Country life; Home economics
_Grafting_ differs from budding, in the scion consisting of several
buds instead of one. It is also performed at a different time of the
year; as March and April are the proper seasons for grafting, whereas
budding is never performed till after Midsummer. In grafting, sometimes
the head of the stock is cut off, and sometimes only the branch, and
the scion is selected according to the size of the part to which it is
to be attached. When the scion and the stock have been both chosen,
they are cut slantingly, so that one may fit into the other; and care
being taken that the bark and soft wood of the two unite, at least
on one side, the two pieces are bound together, and the ligature is
covered with what is called grafting clay, that is, a mixture of stiff
clay, with a fourth part of fresh horse-dung, and a small quantity of
cut hay. Another kind of grafting clay is composed of equal parts of
stiff clay and cow-dung. It is of very little consequence whether the
scion and the stock are of the same diameter, provided they are so
cut and fitted, as to leave no vacuity between them, in those parts
where the union is to be effected; and, to keep them quite closely
attached to each other, it is customary to form a tongue, or little
projecting part, by making a slanting cut in the scion, and to make a
corresponding slit in the stock to receive it. There are several kinds
of grafting; but that which I have described, and which is called whip
or tongue grafting, is the most common, and it is always performed
with the firm or ripened wood. There is, however, another kind of
grafting, now becoming common in the nurseries, which is performed
with the young, or unripened wood, and this is called _herbaceous
grafting_, because the parts of the stem with which it is performed
are as succulent as the stems of herbaceous plants. In this kind of
grafting, the shoot of the stock is broken off about two inches below
the point, and all the leaves are taken off except two, one on each
side, which are left to draw up the sap. The stock is then split with
a very sharp knife between the leaves left on it; and, the base of the
scion having been cut into a wedge-shape, it is fixed into the cleft
made in the stock, which is bound tightly up with strips of cerecloth,
or coarse cotton cloth covered with grafting wax, made of equal parts
of turpentine, bees' wax and rosin, with a little tallow, melted
together. Sometimes plants, especially camellias in pots, are grafted
in this manner, and placed in a hothouse under hand-glasses, and the
pot surrounded with moss, to keep the cutting as close as possible.
This mode of grafting is of French origin, and it is called _la greffe
etouffée_.
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