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Grafting is the primary way to start a new fruit tree. With any grafting technique a piece of the desired tree/variety (scion) is attached to another root, trunk, or branch piece (rootstock) and the pieces are healed together to form a single plant with genetically separate parts. Typically one buys trees from a nursery, fully grafted and grown out in the field for a year or more. I have done a fair amount of cleft grafting in the past as a way to change the variety of a tree or to hold over a variety on a single limb of an otherwise different tree. This, in my opinion, is one of the easiest grafting methods to learn and has fairly good success rates. I intend to cleft over any unsuccessful varieties in the orchard to new ones as years go on.
I plan to graft some trees every year to fill holes in the orchard, prepare for new plantings, maybe have a few trees to sell down the road, and even just because it's fun. Grafting is a simple skill which is pretty amazing to see work its magic, and puts us humans in touch with a link in the natural world. I am just now starting to get fruit from various trees that I grafted years ago and it'w a pretty amazing feeling to think that this new plant and its fruit came from a little three-inch twig you cut yourself.
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All material Copyright © Terence Bradshaw 2006-2008 terryb at lostmeadowvt dot com
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But if you want new trees, you have to
start with smaller stock than that used in cleft grafting. In 2005 I decided to try
my hand again at whip and tongue grafting, a skill I didn't really pick up in plant
propagation class way back when. I did about 275 grafts that spring, 250 at work and
25 at home. At home I had 19 grafts take and start growth. 
My success at work is harder to measure due to some pretty extensive deer
browsing in my nursery bed. In the future I intend to graft over as many of my own new
trees as possible, both for the experience and for the economy ($1.50 per my grafted tree
vs. $8.00 for nursery grafted trees).