278 MANAGEMENT OF FOEEST-TREES 



nre only abortions in figure, and liave a premature decay. Wlicn 

 the beautiful Deodar was a rarity, how was the too confiding 

 public robbed of their money (innocently, perhaps) by pieces of 

 trees (i. e. rooted cuttings) instead of whole ones ; but how soon 

 was the " murder out !" Branches grafted upon the Larch were 

 no better; and in such cases the fault was all heaped upon the 

 poor Larch, because, forsooth, it was not an evergreen.* And 

 ao-ain, how many imperfect specimens of Pinus Webbiana have 

 been fostered with anxious attention, and the results have only, 

 as it were, mocked the labours bestowed upon them and the 

 care with which they had been attended ! A cutting from such 

 a tree can never, or at least but seldom, •[ become anything 

 more than a rooted branch, and as a natural consequence only 

 exhibits that character. It is, I believe, become an established 

 fact that plants produced from cuttings of Pimelea spectabilis 

 seldom survive any lengthened period of time, and it is now 

 a common practice to graft it upon seedlings of another species. 

 The large plants exhibited at the metropolitan floral fetes are, 

 I believe, "worked" upon P. decussata. Mr. Knight found 

 that the vitality of the apple could not be retained beyond a 

 given period by cuttings or grafts, and that constitutional defects, 

 as cankers, still clung to such offspring, proving the individuality 

 and definite existence of a plant beyond all doubt. 



The somewhat modernly recognised branch of vegetable 

 physiology — morphology — is based in purpose, if not in intention, 

 entirely upon views that would give to each perfect plant an 

 individual existence. If we examine a seed, do we not find it 

 composed of separate organs, each acting in concert ? and the 

 merest tyro in the science is aware that mutilation in any one 

 part affects, and in many cases completely neutralizes, perfect 

 organic development. Who has ever seen a healthy plant })ro- 

 duced from a seed with one of its cotyledons (supposing it to be 

 a dicotyledonous plant) defective? And if the several organs of 

 a seed are necessary to produce a perfect individual, upon what 

 grounds can we assert that such one individual can be divided 

 into several perfect plants at a subsequent period of its existence? 



Now as plants produce a variety of substances employed by 



* Query : How comes it that the Glastonbury thorn produces flowers and 

 leaves at Christmas, when " worked" upon the common white-thorn? 



f The laws of organic development in the vegetable kingdom render it 

 possible for a perfect plant to spring from such a cutting, but the exception 

 only establishes the rule. Involving, as it does, a point in the physiology 

 of plants of no practical importance in the present inquiry, I think it best 

 not to take the subject into discussion at present. In a future paper, and in 

 ■which the subject will have a practical bearing, I hope to elucidate my 

 views in this somewhat interesting branch of inquiry. 



