194 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



The grain of corn is a seed containing the germ of a distinct 

 plant, and so long as this corn plant grows, or is propagated 

 by cuttings or offshoots, just so long it will maintain its 

 identity. But its seed may be fertilized from another plant, 

 and its character become very much changed in the succeed- 

 ing crop. But the graft or bud is simply a detached or divided 

 part of a tree ; the seed from which it grew having been fer- 

 tilized perhaps hundreds of years ago, its individuality then 

 stamped upon it, and it has grown ever since without losing 

 one distinctive feature. 



Every seed may contain the germ of a distinct variety of the 

 same species, because it may have been fertilized by pollen from 

 a different individual. But in multiplying plants or trees by 

 a division of their parts (as in grafting, budding, cuttings, or 

 by a division of tubers,) we are merely increasing the parts of 

 a tree whose embryo was fertilized in the seed that produced 

 it; its distinctive character was then impressed upon it, and 

 all the arts or appliances of man cannot change it. Besides* 

 it is an admitted principle in vegetable growth, that trees or 

 plants, propagated by a division of their parts, will remain the 

 same identical varieties, and retain all the qualities and habits 

 of the tree or plant from Avhich they were taken. They are 

 in fact parts of the same plant or tree. 



The stock, base or trunk of a growing tree is only a medium 

 through which it receives crude sap for its growth from the 

 soil. The ascending sap of the different varieties of any 

 species of plants is nearly if not identically alike. This sap 

 food is carried to the leaves, where its excess of water and 

 oxygen are thrown off by evaporation ; carbon is absorbed 

 from the air, and the proper food for the growth of the par- 

 ticular variety of wood and fruit is elaborated and supplied 

 to the tree for its growth in the form of a thin layer between 

 the inner bark and the sap wood. The upward flow of sap 

 from the roots through the sap wood to the leaves, being of 

 one general character, ic follows that a dozen or even more 



