Many experienced orchardists suppose the best time for cutting grafts
to be immediately on the fall of the leaf in autumn.
Grafts should be cut in mild weather, when the wood is entirely free
from frost. Select the _outside_ limbs and the last year’s growth of
wood.
Too much care cannot be observed in _keeping the varieties separate_.
Tie up in bundles and mark the names of each kind as soon as cut. A
moment’s carefulness may save years of vexation.
When the grafts are to be used at home, it is well to lay them in the
cellar where frost will not reach them, and slightly cover them, _so
that they shall not evaporate the moisture which they contain_. Too
much wet injures them. Half-dry sand is as good as anything, and if
packed in an old nail-keg and put in a cool place, they will require
no further attention until it is time to use them.
When grafts are to be sent to a considerable distance, they should be
carefully wrapped in moist cloth, with folds enough to exclude the air
entirely. For convenience of carrying they may be packed, in this
condition, in a box, and the space filled in with cotton-wool, chaff,
bran, or any similar substance.
It is stated by some, that grafts taken from the lower limbs of trees
will produce fruit the soonest; while those from the middle and top
and from the upright shoots will make trees of the finest form. We
confess a slight prejudice against the lower limbs of trees, as it was
thence that “switches” were cut in the mischievous days of our youth,
wherewith to apply Solomon’s doctrine of discipline. Whether they will
make upright trees, we cannot say; but they are supposed to have a
tendency to make upright men.