There are a large number of different classified apple root stocks today, but there are only ten or eleven that need worry the normal fruit grower. The original Mailing series are invariably designated by the letter M, followed by a number expressed as a Roman numeral. The M stocks are those originally classified by the East Mailing Research Station.

First of all, he has to learn and master the technicalities of budding and grafting, besides which he has to learn the various ‘pedigree’ root stocks on which to ‘work’ the variety he wishes to reproduce. The stock may be described as the root part of the tree. It is a ‘wild type’ which normally would bear quite small apples, pears or plums if allowed to grow naturally.

This new range of root stocks is resistant to woolly aphis and, further, some types show superior orchard performance. The stocks are identified by the abbreviation MM followed by the normal Arabic numerals.

It is usual not to allow more than and if the runners do not flower by October they are transplanted then and they give excellent results the following season. October- planted runners crop two weeks before those planted in the spring.

The Operations known as Grafting and Budding Having produced the necessary stock vegetatively and made certain therefore that it is exactly similar to the original stock received from East Mailing or from a nurseryman, it is planted out in the nursery bed where it is to be budded or grafted. Here the rows will probably be 18 inches apart and the stocks themselves 1 foot apart in the rows. The grafting in the spring, or the budding in the summer, will usually be done following planting, providing the stock itself is thick and strong enough. It is useful for it to be about the thickness of a normal pencil.

The operation of grafting is usually done towards the end of March or the beginning of April, for it is then that the sap is rising in the stocks. As the grafter must see that the exposed surfaces of the stock and the scion (the piece of one-year-old wood of a known variety) are perfectly smooth, it is necessary for him to have a sharp knife and a stone with which to keep the blade sharp. He will need, in addition, grafting tape or damp raffia for binding the graft to the stock; some grafting wax which he will either make up himself or buy in from the horticultural chemist ready for use.