This age has often been most emphatically termed the age of improvement. Not only have men ceased to be contented with the quality of that which perfectly satisfied their fathers, but they desire to increase the quantity and to greatly hasten in its acquisition.

Travellers are not content to wait the slow progress of the stage coaches which contented our parents, but insist on express railway trains, and even then are envious of the words which are transmitted by the magnetic telegraph. In horticulture we are not content to await the gradual development of a plant or tree; but we must stimulate its growth and hasten forward its maturity, until we receive in three or, four years those returns which satisfied our grandparents in forty.

It is this haste to develop the maturity and to obtain the most speedy returns which has made the dwarf pear so popular. It is this crowding the results of half a dozen seasons into one which has enabled those who plant a tree or set out a vine to do so with the well-grounded hope of enjoying the fruit of their labors; and now it has caused to be revived and brought again into notice that old and useful method of grafting, called inarching. Grafting by approach, or inarching, is the procuring of a union between two branches of separate plants while both branches are in connection with their own roots; in order that, after the union has become perfect, the part of one branch above the connection and of the other below it may be cut away, and the strength of the roots of the one plant go into the branch thus transferred from the other.

This inarching is an old and useful method of grafting, which promises to become an eminently useful practice among our amateurs and gardeners. It is desirable, wherever there is difficulty in securing union between the stock and scion, and especially desirable where a stock has such a tendency to bleed (as the grape has) that it rarely allows the scion to remain where placed, and loses sap enough to be often a serious detriment.

It has been practised for more than a hundred years in its various modifications, one of which is, by taking the branch and plunging the end in a jar of water; (as shown in the January number of the Horticulturist;) another is, by planting the end of the branch in the ground; another is, by planting the scion root in the ground; another, and the one which I recommend, is, the bringing the scion plant near the stock root, in a flower-pot, until the object is attained, and then removing the pot and transferring the plant to the open ground without disturbance of the root or check to the growth.

Inarching is valuable in greenhouses for the Lemon, Orange, Camellia, etc, etc.; and, in our lawns and shrubberies, there are some trees which can only be placed in desirable situations by this process.

Messrs. Bissell & Salter, of Rochester, N. Y.f commenced practising it extensively upon their grape-vines in 1858, and with perfect success. It is also spoken of in the Revue Horticole of 1859, as copied into the January number of the Horticulturist, (as before stated.) In the Year Booh of the Farm and Garden for 1860, published by A. M. Spangler, of Philadelphia, is a capital notice, and also in Moore's Rural New Yorker for January, 1860.

The operation, as practised upon the grapevine, is as follows: Select a branch of the old vine of as nearly the size of the plant in the pot as possible. Place the pot in the earth at a suitable distance, as shown in figure 3. Remove a small section of the wood of each plant, cutting into the alburnum, as represented in figure 1. Fasten these together firmly making the inner bark and wood coincide, as in common grafting. The union must be so close as to prevent any space between the two surfaces. Wind with grafting cloth, or with bass bark, or with soft cotton twist, as shown in figure 2, and secure the branches to a stake, so that they shall not be swayed by the wind. If the new vine had been growing in a small pot, it had better be re-potted into a larger pot, just before setting it in the earth; and this, if carefully done, need not disturb the roots, or check its growth in the slightest degree.

This can be done at any time in the year; but we prefer May or June, or when the new shoots of the old vine are about two or three inches long, and while the sap is most active. It is advisable to gradually sever the connection of the plant in the pot below the junction, cutting it one-third across, and again, and again; thus gradually compelling the scion to receive all its sap from the new root Union will generally be perfect in two or three months, and the severance of the scion below the junction and of the stock above is to be completed, so that the old root and the new vine are one. The pot is then removed with its vine, which can be transferred to the garden without the slightest disturbance of the roots, or the least check to its growth, even if done in midsummer.

The advantages of this process are, 1 st. Union is more certain, because the scion remaining in contact with its own root is nourished by its own sap; neither dries nor decays, and remains in a fit condition for union until such time as it is perfected. .

2. If union does not take place, all that has been done to the old vine has been the shaving of a small slice of the outer bark from a little place on one side, and all the loss to the vine in the pot is the damage of one or two of the top buds.

3. Risks are almost entirely removed by this mode, because the scion remaining in union with its own root is not in any danger, even if union with the old vine should not take place.

Fig. l.

Fig. 2.

4. It converts an old and comparatively useless vine into a new sort, bestowing upon the recently introduced variety all the advantages of the aged, well-rooted, and long-established vine.

The whole process is a clear gain; because only the upper part of the new vine is used for scions, that part which would otherwise be pruned off by the good gardener; while the moment union is perfect you can remove the pot with the vine, and transfer it to the garden uninjured. In fact, this inarching is only another mode for the purchaser to get two vines in one, and fruit earlier than in any other way; and not only earlier, but more abundantly, because the' new sort has all the advantages which the old variety has acquired by long standing in its position, being thoroughly established, and, nothing to do but to grow and bear fruit, and do it well.

5. Two more scions can be inarched upon one root, as shown in figure 3, and a purchaser who already owns his well-established grape root can have one, two, or half a dozen of the newer varieties inarched upon it, each variety sharing the advantages of the old vine, and just as thrifty, strong, and vigorous as if each had been planted and growing for years beside the old farm house.

6. The old stock can all this while be kept in bearing with its own sort; because the gardener can, as shown in figure 3, select branches which are not to be interfered with, and from them enjoy the same crops as before.

Many times a gentleman has all the taste for enjoying the cultivation of a number of sorts of vines, while he can spare only the space requisite for planting two, four, or six roots. Let him remember, that by the process which we have above described, he can have ten, or twenty, or thirty varieties of grapes upon half a dozen roots, and when he tests them he can have his vines bearing exactly what he pleases, without the delay and the loss of constant digging up, planting, and transplanting.

Fig. 8.