BUD VERSUS GRAFT.
July indeed may be claimed as a spring month. We should sow vegetables,- plant strawberries and bud roses and fruit- trees. And in this third department of garden work July now ousts March or April. Almost all the makers of fruit-trees now bud in preference to grafting. They graft only when the budding fails. Not that grafting is less popular than it was. It is more popular in one respect. I saw last year an extensive commercial apple orchard of large trees changed from one variety that was found unremunerative to another of more immediate popularity. This, of course, could only be done by grafting ; but in the making of young trees budding is preferred for several reasons, one of which is that it saves labour. " We use a man and a boy instead of two men and a boy," one of our most expert fruit-growers said to me. And July has a good many advantages over Good Friday (often quoted as the best grafting day), in respect of risk from weather.
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