Top-budding Trees

The top-budding of fruit and ornamental trees is much practised

now-a-days by orchardists and fruit-growers generally, and sometimes

with marked success.



A famous horticulturist of Geneva, N. Y., some years ago planted a large

number of Lombard plum trees, which he fondly expected to see come into

bearing while quite young, and be early compensated for his labor and

expense in planting them. He waited a number of years without seeing his

hopes realized; his patience at last became exhausted, and starting, lie

top-budded them all with the Bradshaw plum, which grew rapidly, and bore

abundantly in a couple of years, and last season he received eight

dollars per bushel for the fruit in the Philadelphia market. It is a

well known fact among fruit-growers that some rank-growing varieties of

fruit trees, as for instance the Keiffer Hybrid Pear, do not produce

fruit so early, or in such abundance as some less thrifty-growing

varieties, such as the Beurre Clairgeau, but by top-budding the

latter-named sort on to a thrifty specimen of the former, we have a tree

that will bear fruit almost every year.



Nothing will take better from the bud than the rose; some elegant tree

roses can be grown by simply training up a shoot of any common or wild

rose to a sufficient hight, about five feet, and then top-budding it

with three or four choice hybrids, as the Gen. Jacqueminot, La

Reine, Coquette des Alps, and Black Prince, and those gems of the

floral kingdom, when in blossom, will form a variety of dazzling

beauties, the effect of which will not only be charming to the eye, but

novel as well. I once removed from the door-yard a large rose bush of

the Crimson Boursault variety, which had a number of large limbs on,

into a corner of the conservatory, and there budded into it fifty

different choice varieties of Roses of all classes: Hybrids, Teas,

Noisettes, Bourbons, China, and Bengal varieties. The effect of all

these different Roses, when in full blow the following summer was

amazing; a perfect galaxy of the "Queen of Flowers."



A similar operation is possible for any skillful amateur florist to

perform who has the facilities of a hot-house.



Budding can only be done when, ripe buds can be obtained, and when the

stock to be budded is in a growing and thrifty condition, so that when

opening the bark of the stock, the same peels freely, and opens readily

at the touch of the knife. We will append here a brief table showing at

what months of the summer different trees may be budded:



Apples July 10th to 12th.

Pears July 10th to 12th.

Plums July 10th to 12th.

Cherries July 20th to Aug. 1st.

Quinces July 20th to Aug. 1st.

Peaches July 20th to Aug. 1st.

Nectarines Aug. 10th to 20th.

Apricots Aug. 10th to 20th.



Most all sorts of ornamental trees, including Roses, in the ordinary

season; namely, from July to August 1st.