For this purpose, a kind of stiff loamy mortar may be prepared of strong fat loam; or any other tough clay may be substituted; to which may be added a fourth part of fresh horse-dung, free from litter, and a small portion of cut hay, with a little water, well mixed: the whole should be properly beaten with a stick, and thus incorporated.
This operation should be repeated, according to the nature of the clay, and performed several times during the first day; the composition being still moistened with water for six or seven days successively, at the end of which time it will be fit for use.
There are various other modes of engrafting, which are termed whip-grafting, or tongue-grafting, cleft-grafting, crown-grafting, root-grafting, cheek-grafting, side-grafting; and, lastly, grafting by approach, or Inarching (to which we refer). Beside this last-mentioned, the following are most commonly and successfully practised:
1. Whip-grafting, or tongue-grafting, is generally performed in nurseries, upon small stocks, from a quarter of an inch to half, or a whole inch in diameter. The stock, and cyons or grafts, should always be of the same size, or approach as nearly to the same size as possible. They are both to be sloped off a full inch, or more, and then tied closely together. This method may be much improved, by performing what gardeners call tongueing, or tipping; that is, by making an incision in the bare part of the stock, downwards, and a similar slit in the cyon, upwards; after which they are to be carefully joined together, so that the rinds of both may meet in every part, when a ligament or bandage of bass is to be tied round the cyon, to prevent it from being displaced; and the whole is to be covered over, or coated, with the clay above described.
2. Cleft-grafting, or slit-grafting, as gardeners differently term it, is performed upon stocks from one to two inches in diameter. The head of the stock being carefully cut off, in a sloping direction, a perpendicular cleft, or slit, is to be made about two inches deep, with a knife or chisel, towards the back of the slope, into which a wedge is to be driven, in order to keep it open for the admission of the cyon: the latter must now be cut in a perpendicular direction, and in the form of a wedge, so as to fit the incision in the stock. As soon as it is prepared, it should be placed in the cleft, in such a manner that the inner bark of both the stock and cyon may meet exactly together. It is then to be tied with a ligature of bass, and clayed over, as is practised in whip-grafting, three or four eyes being left on the cyon uncovered. The proper season for this mode of grafting is the same as for the preceding, viz. the months of February and March: towards the latter end of May, or the beginning of June, the junction of the graft and stock will be completed, and the latter begin to shoot; when the clay may be taken off, and, in the course of a fortnight or three weeks, the bandages may be removed.
ENRICHING PLANTS, a term employed by gardeners to denote such plants as ameliorate land, in consequence of which the same soil will produce a good crop of corn; as, without attending to the culture of such plants, a very indifferent one would have followed.—See Crops.
The necessity of sowing such
