CHAPTER VII.. Grafts in the Portable Greenhouse.

GRAFTS IN THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE.

Of Grafting in general.--Resources that it offers for fixing the Fugitive Sub-varieties.--Extent to which Grafting is possible.--Tomatoes upon Potatoes.--Rice Upon Phalaris.--Orange Graft.--Manner of Operating.--Wrappings of Woollen Tarn.--Applications of the above Process.--Pontoise Graft.--Grafting the Camellia.--The Camellia in its Native Country.

Of Grafts in general.

Before learning how to perform the different modes of grafting which belong to the domain of parlor horticulture, you may, perhaps, ladies, wish to be informed what grafting itself is, considered in a general point of view. Grafting, then, is, if I may be permitted to use the expression, a forced marriage, often very badly assorted. Of this particular kind of forced marriage, the consequences cannot be happy, except when the two individuals, united without having been consulted, are very near relations; that is to say, when they belong to species or varieties very proximate to each other. In the portable greenhouse, both cold and warm, we have just been practising, with complete success, the operation called slipping, in a variety of ways. Well, then, grafting is still another kind of slipping. Instead of putting the slip in the earth, that it may there live by its own roots, we join it on to another plant, where a piece has been cut away to make room for it. Then, instead of putting out roots of its own, that it may draw from the earth the sustenance which it requires, the graft incorporates itself with the plant to which it has been attached, and feeds upon the stores provided by the latter for its own support. This it does without changing its own nature, or modifying in any way that of the other. You may have remarked this in gardens. If a plum stock, upon which an apricot has been grafted, puts out young shoots below the graft, these are plum shoots. In like manner, a sweetbrier stock with a rose grafted on it, produces only branches of sweetbrier, exactly such as they would have been had the plant never been grafted upon. On the other hand, the graft, and all produced by it, retains the nature of its parent plant as perfectly unchanged as if it had continued to form part of it. Owing to this law, results the most curious and precious are easily obtained in horticulture. Varieties, and fugitive sub-varieties, which it is impossible to reproduce by sowing, difficult even to preserve by slips, are fixed and propagated indefinitely.

Survey of Grafts that are possible.

That I may not have to repeat, I will remark now, ladies, that the domain of grafting, the extent to which successful grafting is possible, is very great; so great that it has not yet been completely explored. You know, as every body does, that fruit trees and roses are grafted. I am going to have the pleasure of making you graft, in your portable greenhouse, oranges and camellias, wherewith to furnish your balcony garden when it shall come to be established. I am going also to make you plant a simple and modest potato in a box, that you may have the pleasure of grafting on its stalks shoots of tomatoes. Yes, shoots that will bloom and produce their fruit, while the vegetation of the potato is running its career and continuing to form its tubers. On closing the account, you will gather potatoes enough for a dish, and tomatoes enough to make a sauce for the beef stew, to be served with the potatoes. I will lay a wager, madam, that this tomato sauce will have a more exquisite flavor for your palate than any your cook ever prepared before, let her be the very best of all possible cooks.

When you procure an aquarium, you may cultivate rice in it, which will come to perfect maturity. You must graft shoots of this rice upon seeds of the species phalaris; and you will see that they will not grow the less healthily, nor form their ears the less perfectly for being grafts. I tell you all this beforehand, in order that you may at once form an idea of what it may be possible to accomplish by grafting, even when restricted to the narrow limits of horticulture in the parlor.

Orange Grafts.

Here are the young stocks, the product of the orange and lemon seeds sown by you a year ago. They are the size of a quill; their wood has consistence, their vegetation is vigorous; it is time to graft on them. Let us take for grafts young shoots of a myrtle-leaved China orange--one of the prettiest varieties to cultivate in an apartment, whether on account of its numerous flowers, which are fragrant, but not too strongly so, or on account of the fruits that succeed these flowers, and which, preserved in sugar or in brandy, are a favorite treat for a numerous class of consumers.

About half way up the stock, you make choice of a leaf very green and well formed; at the fork of this leaf--that is to say, at the point where it connects with the stalk--there is an eye, which eye, if left there, would produce a side branch.

With a newly-sharpened penknife, cut a little way into the wood, above and below the eye, making these cuts slanting, so that a small portion of the stalk, containing that eye, shall be separated and fall, without the leaf being detached. Now you have a cutting, the size and form of which you must examine with care. This being done, you must then, for the graft that is to occupy the vacancy just made by you, select a little branch of myrtle-leaved orange, and the lower end of this must be cut into such shape as to fit very exactly into the place cut in the stock. As the graft, if left there after being fitted, would fall apart at the least shake, it requires to be fastened in its place, until it shall have taken firm hold and incorporated itself with the stock. This is effected by putting a bandage on. But here a difficulty presents itself, which has caused many a failure, but may, however, easily be surmounted by a little attention. If you do not draw the bandage tight enough, it will not hold the two surfaces in contact, and this would prevent the success of the operation. If, on the other hand, you draw it too tight, this will interfere with the circulation of the sap; your graft will be strangled, as the gardeners say. Take care, then, to adjust your bandage perfectly--avoiding both extremes; tight enough, but only just tight enough, to keep the graft firmly in its place. Employ for this purpose untwisted woollen thread, which, in case you have drawn it somewhat too tight, will, from its elasticity, accommodate itself to what the sap requires, and prevent strangling.

Applications of the above Method of Grafting.

All graftings of this sort that can be made on other shrubs with persistent leaves, besides orange trees, and especially upon daphnes and myrtles, will prove completely successful, provided that at the time you graft them these shrubs are in full sap--that is, that their vegetation is in full activity. Strictly speaking, in ornamental shrubs with persistent leaves, the sap is never completely stationary, as it is in winter with those that lose their leaves. They have, however, a half repose in winter; after which their sap begins to flow again with renewed energy. This is the most favorable time for grafting them.

Grafting a la Pontoise.

As to the orange, its vital principle is so very active that you can, without fear, trust a graft quite full of flower buds ready to bloom, to a seedling stock a year or eighteen months old. The graft should be of a diameter nearly equal to that of the stock; it will take directly. The course of the sap is not sensibly interrupted, and the buds will open as if they had remained upon the shrub from which they were detached. In all cases, the entire stock above the graft should be removed, so that the portion of the stock below the graft shall form merely the lower part of the trunk of the tree, whilst all above shall be formed from the graft exclusively. If this sort of grafting, named by the French gardeners grafting à la pontoise, were conducted in the open air, the evaporation from the leaves would kill the graft before it took. It can succeed only when excluded from contact with the air. Your orange trees grafted in this manner will be perfectly sheltered under the glass of your portable greenhouse; which you must take care to keep close shut, until your grafts, by continuing to grow, give you assurance that they have taken.

Grafting Camellias.

Now, ladies, that you know how to graft orange trees, you can, without further teaching, graft the single camellias that you have multiplied by slips; the proceeding is exactly the same. You must not, however, take for grafts--as you did for the orange--branches bearing flower buds; the flower buds would not bloom, and the flower-bearing branches would with difficulty be made to grow to the stock. You also already know that the bud of the camellia only takes with certainty in the warm greenhouse; unaided by artificial heat, the sap of the camellia, much less active than that of the orange, would not suffice to assure the success of the grafting.

Moreover, I would have you remark, ladies, that grafting offers you infinite resources for rejuvenating old camellias that have gone out of fashion. Graft upon their boughs, whatever their age may be, young shoots of camellia, of the kind that may be most in fashion at the time. Camellias, like yourselves, are subject to the caprices of fashion. These grafts will always take; the camellia in its native country being a sturdy tree, of a very robust temperament, which it partly preserves in the conservatories of Europe and America. If it should ever happen to you to make a pleasure trip to Japan,--it might so happen to any body,--you would see that, although the camellia is a sacred tree, which they plant round the temples, while its flowers are used in making garlands for religious festivals, they treat it in other respects with but little ceremony. You would see entire woods of them, of great extent, where every camellia is trimmed up to a single stem, as straight as a hop-pole. Do you know what they do when these camellias are of an age to be cut down? They make of them, ladies, simply handles for brooms, or spades, or other utensils; they are intended for nothing else.

Do not expect, in going to Japan, the country of the camellia, to see this charming shrub such as you see it here. The Japanese gardeners do not trouble themselves much in bringing it to perfection. Your camellias, that you have reared from slips and grafted with your own hands, might serve as models to those that figure in the gardens of the Emperor of Japan.