IS GRAFTAGE A DEVITALIZING PROCESS? 153 



that the plant may not have positively increased in virility if sexual prop- 

 agation had been employed. The presumption is always in favor of sexual 

 reproduction, a point which, I suppose, will be admitted by everyone. 

 And right here is where graftage has an enormous theoretical advantage 

 over cuttage or any other asexual multiplication: the root of the graft 

 springs from sexual reproduction, for it is a seedling, and if the union 

 is physically perfect — as I have shown is frequently the case — there is 

 reason to suppose that grafting between consanguineous plants is better 

 than propagating by cuttings or layers. In other words, graftage is really 

 sexual multiplication, and if seeds have any advantage over buds in form- 

 ing the foundation of a plant, graftage is a more perfect method than 

 any other artificial practice. It is, in fact, the nearest approach to direct 

 sexual reproduction, and when seeds can not be relied upon wholly, as 

 they cannot, for the reproduction of many garden varieties, is the best 

 ideal practice, always provided, of course, that it is properly done between 

 congenial subjects. It is not to be expected that the practice is adapted 

 to all plants, any more than is the making of cuttings of leaves or of 

 stems, but this fact can not be held to invalidate the system. 



It has been said in evidence that graftage is a devitalizing or at least dis- 

 turbing process, that grafted plants lose the power of independent propa- 

 gation. Mr. Burbidge writes that "any plant once grafted becomes 

 exceedingly difficult of increase, except by grafting." I have never known 

 a case in which this is true. We are now forcing wood from both budded 

 and cutting-grown roses, and cuttings grow equally well from both. All 

 our fruits grow just as readily from seeds from grafted as from seedling 

 trees, and I have never heard of a well-authenticated case of a plant which 

 grows readily from cuttings becoming any more difficult to root after hav- 

 ing been grafted. 



But is there direct evidence to show that "grafting is always a make- 

 shift," that it is a "toy game," that "grafted plants of all kinds are open to 

 all sorts of accidents and disaster," that "own-rooted things are in all ways 

 iu finitely better, healthier, and longer-lived?" These statements allow 

 of no exceptions; they are universal and iron-bound. If the question were 

 to be fully met, we should need to discuss the whole art of graftage in all 

 its detail, but if we can find one well -authenticated case in which a grafted 

 plant is as strong, as hardy, as vigorous, as productive and as long-lived as 

 seedlings or as cutting-plants, we shall have established the fact that the 

 operation is not necessarily pernicious, and shall have created the presump- 

 tion that other cases must exist. 



Some forty years ago, my father took apple seeds from his old home 

 in Vermont and planted them in Michigan. Upon my earliest recol- 

 lection the resulting orchard was composed of some hundred or more 

 lusty trees, but as most of the fruit was poor or indifferent, it was 

 decided to top-graft the trees. This grafting was done in the most 

 desultory manner, some trees being grafted piece-meal, with some 

 of the original branches allowed to remain permanently, while others 

 were entirely changed, over at once; and a few of them had been 

 grafted on the trunk, about three or four feet high, when they 

 were as large as broomsticks, the whole top having been cut off 

 when the operation was performed. A few trees which chanced to bear 

 tolerable fruit, scattered here and there through the orchard, were not 

 grafted. The orchard has been, therefore, an excellent experiment in 

 grafting. Many of the trees in this old orchard have died from unde- 

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