Chap. 23 Inoculation or Budding
In this, too, the art of inoculating3007 took its rise. By the aid of an instrument similar to a shoe-makerβs paring-knife an eye is opened in a tree by paring away the bark, and another bud is then enclosed in it, that has been previously removed with the same instrument from another tree. This was the ancient mode of inoculation with the fig and the apple. That again, described by Virgil,3008 requires a slight fissure to be made in the knot of a bud which has burst through the bark, and in this is enclosed a bud taken from another tree. Thus far has Nature been our instructor in these matters.