_Of the ordinary and accustomed manner of Grafting all sorts of
Fruit-trees._
{SN: The mixing of Stockes and Grafts.}
As soone as your nursery is thus amply furnished of all sorts of
stockes, proceeding from kernells and of all sorts of trees proceeding
from cyons, branches or vndergrowings, and that through strength of
yeeres they are growne to sufficient abilitie to receiue grafts, which
is to be intended that they must be at the least sixe or eight inches in
compasse, for although lesse many times both doth and may receiue
grafts, yet they are full of debilitie and danger, and promise no
assurance to the worke-mans labour, you shall then beginne to graft your
stockes with such fruits as from art and experience are meete to be
conioyned together, as thus: you shall graft Apples vpon Apples, as the
Pippin vpon the great Costard, the Peare-maine vpon the Ienetting, and
the Apple-Iohn or blacke annet vpon the Pomewater or Crab-tree: to
conclude, any Apple-stocke, Crab-tree, or wilding, is good to graft
Apples vpon, but the best is best worthy. So for Peares, you shall graft
them vpon Peare stockes, Quinces vpon Quinces or Crab-trees, and not
according to the opinion of the frenchman, vpon white thorne or willow,
the Medlar vpon the Seruice-tree, and the Seruice vpon the Medlar, also
Cherryes vpon Cherryes, & Plumbes vpon Plumbes, as the greater Abricots
vpon the lesser Abricots, the Peach, the Figge, or the Damson-tree, and
to speake generally without wasting more paper, or making a long
circumstance to slender purpose, the Damson-tree is the onely principall
best stocke whereupon to graft any kinde of Plumbe or stone fruit
whatsoeuer.
{SN: The choise of Grafts.}
After you haue both your stockes ready, and know which grafts to ioyne
with which stockes, you shall then learne to cut and chuse your grafts
in this manner: looke from what tree you desire to take your grafts, you
shall goe vnto the very principall branches thereof, and looke vp to the
vpper ends, and those which you finde to be fairest, smoothest, and
fullest of sappe, hauing the little knots, budds, or eyes, standing
close and thicke together, are the best and most perfect, especially if
they grow vpon the East side of the tree, whereon the Sunne first
looketh; these you shall cut from the tree in such sort that they may
haue at least three fingars of the olde woode ioyning to the young
branch, which you shall know both by the colour of the barke, as also by
a little round seame which maketh as it were a distinction betwixt the
seuerall growths. Now you shall euer, as neere as you can, chuse your
grafts from a young tree, and not from an olde, and from the tops of the
principall branches, and not from the midst of the tree, or any other
superfluous arme or cyon; now if after you haue got your grafts you haue
many dayes Iourneys to carry them, you shall fould them in a few fresh
mouldes, and binde them about with hay, and hay ropes, and so carry them
all day, and in the night bury them all ouer in the ground and they will
containe their goodnesse for a long season.
{SN: How to graft in the Cleft.}
Hauing thus prepared your grafts, you shall then beginne to graft, which
worke you shall vnderstand may be done in euery month of the yeere,
except Nouember and October, but the best is to beginne about Christmas
for all earely and forward fruit, and for the other, to stay till March:
now hauing all your implements and necessaryes about you, fit for the
Grafting, you shall first take your grafts, of what sort soeuer they be,
and hauing cut the neather ends of them round and smoth without raysing
of the barke, you shall then with a sharp knife, made in the proportion
of a great pen-knife slice downe each side of the grafts, from the seame
or knot which parts the olde woode from the new, euen to the neather
end, making it flat and thinne, cheifely in the lowest part, hauing
onely a regardfull eye vnto the pith of the graft, which you may by no
meanes cut or touch, and when you haue thus trimmed a couple of grafts,
for moe I doe by no meanes alow vnto one stocke, although sundry other
skilfull workmen in this Art alow to the least stocke two grafts, to the
indifferent great three, and to the greatest of all foure, yet I affirme
two are sufficiently inough for any stocke whatsoeuer, and albeit they
are a little the longer in couering the head, yet after they haue
couered it the tree prospereth more in one yeere then that which
contayneth foure grafts shall doe in two, because they cannot haue sap
inough to maintaine them, which is the reason that trees for want of
prosperitie grow crooked and deformed: but to my purpose. When you haue
made your grafts ready, you shall then take a fine thinne sawe, whose
teeth shalbe filed sharpe and euen, and with it (if the stocke be
exceeding small) cut the stocke round off within lesse then a foote of
the ground, but if the stocke be as bigge as a mans arme, then you may
cut it off two or three foote from the ground, and so consequently the
bigger it is the higher you may cut it, and the lesser the nearer vnto
the earth: as soone as you haue sawne off the vpper part of the stocke,
you shall then take a fine sharpe chissell, somewhat broader then the
stocke, and setting it euen vpon the midst of the head of the stocke
somewhat wide of the pith, then with a mallet of woode you shall stricke
it in and cleaue the stocke, at least foure inches deepe, then putting
in a fine little wedge of Iron, which may keepe open the cleft, you
shall take one of your grafts and looke which side of it you intend to
place inward, and that side you shall cut much thinner then the out
side, with a most heedfull circumspection that by no meanes you loosen
or rayse vp the barke of the graft, cheifly on the out side, then you
shall take the graft, and wetting it in your mouth place it in one side
of the cleft of the stocke, and regard that the very knot or seame which
goes about the graft, parting the olde woode from the new, do rest
directly vpon the head of the stocke, and that the out side of the
graft doe agree directly with the out side of the stocke, ioyning barke
vnto barke, and sappe vnto sappe, so euen, so smooth, and so close, that
no ioyners worke may be discerned to ioyne more arteficially: which
done, vpon the other side of the stocke, in the other cleft, you shall
place your other graft, with full as much care, diligence, and euery
other obseruation: when both your grafts are thus orderly and
arteficially placed, you shall then by setting the haft of your chissell
against the stocke, with all lenitie and gentlenesse, draw forth your
wedge, in such sort that you doe not displace or alter your grafts, and
when your wedge is forth you shall then looke vpon your grafts, and if
you perceiue that the stocke doe pinch or squize them, which you may
discerne both by the straitnesse and bending of the outmost barke, you
shall then make a little wedge of some greene sappy woode, and driuing
it into the cleft, ease your grafts, cutting that wedge close to the
stocke. When you haue thus made both your grafts perfect, you shall then
take the barke of either Apple-tree, Crab-tree or Willow-tree, and with
that barke couer the head of the stocke so close that no wet or other
annoyance may get betwixt it and the stocke, then you shall take a
conuenient quantitie of clay, which indeede would be of a binding
mingled earth, and tempering it well, either with mosse or hay, lay it
vpon the barke, and daube all the head of the stocke, euen as low as the
bottome of the grafts, more then an inch thicke, so firme, close, and
smooth as may be, which done, couer all that clay ouer with soft mosse,
and that mosse with some ragges of wollen cloath, which being gently
bound about with the inward barkes of Willow, or Osyar, let the graft
rest to the pleasure of the highest: and this is called grafting in the
cleft.
{SN: Notes.}
Now there be certaine obseruations or caueats to be respected in
grafting, which I may not neglect: as first, in trimming and preparing
your grafts for the stocke: if the grafts be either of Cherry, or
Plumbe, you shall not cut them so thinne as the grafts of Apples,
Quinces, or Medlars, because they haue a much larger and rounder pith,
which by no meanes must be toucht but fortefied and preserued, onely to
the neather end you may cut them as thinne as is possible, the pith
onely preserued.
Secondly, you shall into your greatest stockes put your greatest grafts,
and into your least, the least, that there may be an equall strength and
conformitie in their coniunction.
Thirdly, if at any time you be inforced to graft vpon an olde tree, that
is great and large, then you shall not graft into the body of that tree,
because it is impossible to keepe it from putrifaction and rotting
before the grafts can couer the head, but you shall chuse out some of
the principall armes or branches, which are much more slender, and graft
them, as is before shewed, omitting not dayly to cut away all cyons,
armes, branches, or superfluous sprigs which shall grow vnder those
branches which you haue newly grafted: but if there be no branch, small
or tender inough to graft in, then you shall cut away all the maine
branches from the stocke, and couering the head with clay and mosse, let
it rest, and within three or foure yeeres it will put forth new cyons,
which will be fit to graft vpon.
Fourthly, if when you either sawe off the top of your stocke, or else
cleaue the head, you either raise vp the barke or cleaue the stocke too
deepe, you shall then sawe the stocke againe, with a little more
carefulnesse, so much lower as your first errour had committed a fault.
Fiftly, you shall from time to time looke to the binding of the heads of
your stockes, in so much that if either the clay doe shrinke away or the
other couerings doe losen, by which defects ayre, or wet, may get into
the incission, you shall presently with all speede amend and repaire it.
Lastly, if you graft in any open place where cattell doe graze, you
shall not then forget as soone as you haue finisht your worke to bush or
hedge in your graft, that it may be defended from any such negligent
annoyance. And thus much for this ordinary manner of grafting, which
although it be generall and publike to most men that knoweth any thing
in this art, yet is it not inferiour, but the principallest and surest
of all other.