Grafting

In front of the big dairy barn there were two lonely rose bushes. One of them produced huge yellow roses and the other one a delicate pink. LV had a tender place in his heart for all living things and everyday he passed those bushes on the way to the barn he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for them. They were so far away from the the dozen red rose bushes that marched in a neat line behind the house.

He wished there was something he could do for them so that they wouldn't be as lonely. Consulting an encyclopedia he read everything he could find about roses and when he discovered there was something called grafting he became excited. After doing all the limited research available he felt quite capable of giving it a try. He wasn't sure though what his Mom would think about the idea since he was only nine so he waited until one afternoon when his parents went to town.

Armed with a pruning shear and his head filled with grafting information he set to work. He carefully removed several branches from the red roses and grafted them to the yellow and pink bushes. He taped them carefully and now all that was left to do was keep an eye on them and hope that they would grow.

He wasn't disappointed. Those bushes readily accepted the grafts and the next year they produced a mixture of roses, beautiful big yellow ones, red ones, and best of all yellow roses that had red stripes running through them. His Mom realized something was going on and was quite pleased to learn that he had a successful grafting experience.

Today those two rose bushes are big and still each produce three different colors of roses all because a little boy didn't want them to be lonely.