Blakeslee and Farnham: Bottle Graftino: 



173 



at an earlier date. The base of the 

 scion which acted as a feedpipe for 

 water has been removed and a single 

 band of raffia protects the union and 

 prevents it breaking- at the joint before 

 it has been strengthened by the forma- 

 tion of woody tissue. The pot at the 

 right contains a green-stemmed stock 

 upon which has been grafted a purple- 

 stemmed scion. The foot of the latter 

 which connected with the bottle has 

 not yet been removed and may be seen 

 as a small projection on the left. 



Obviously bottle grafting is merely 

 a modification of inarching or the 

 grafting together of two plants which 



are growing side by side. Doubtless 

 this method has been used by others, 

 since it is a natural means of obviat- 

 ing the difficulties encountered in at- 

 tempting to graft slow-growing scions. 

 It is not mentioned, however, in 

 Bailey's Standard Cyclopedia of Horti- 

 culture, nor is the method known to a 

 number of horticulturalists and botan- 

 ists with whom we have discussed the 

 method. We are publishing this brief 

 note, therefore, to call attention to a 

 method which we believe may be of 

 considerable use to plant geneticists in 

 keeping alive exceptional breeding 

 material. 



Blood Tells Again 



The Colorado Endurance Ride takes 

 place each year to stimulate interest in 

 the breeding and use of better saddle 

 horses. It is a gruelling test of en- 

 durance, which only a fine horse can 

 survive. The distance covered is 

 about three hundred miles. The con- 

 test lasts five consecutive days, the 

 daily course averaging about sixty 

 miles. Each horse is required to carrv 

 225 pounds. 



It is an interesting fact that this 

 contest, like the races for speed, goes 

 to the pure-bred horse. In former 

 years scrub horses have been allowed 

 to enter, but in 1923 they are barred 

 for the reasons given below : 



"A provision adopted for the Colo- 

 rado Ride of 1923, which has always 

 pertained in the East but was not 

 heretofore prescribed in the West, is 

 that which requires that a competing 

 horse be at least a half-bred of some 

 recognized breed ; in other words, his 

 sire or dam must be a pure bred. 



The Sponsors' Committee when con- 

 sidering this matter in 1922 recog- 

 nized fully that, from many stand- 

 points, it was a sheer waste of time 

 to permit the entry of horses of un- 

 known breeding ; for even assuming 

 the possibility that such a horse could 



win, no useful information would be 

 derived from his performance, inas- 

 much as one would have no clew as 

 to how to reproduce him. However, 

 it was deemed wise to open the en- 

 tries to scrub horses for one year, in 

 order to render it abundantly clear to 

 ranchmen that the proper type of 

 blood horse excels the horse of no 

 breeding at any task, whether it be 

 running at high speed, or carrying 

 weight for long distances. This hav- 

 ing now been satisfactorily demon- 

 strated, entries have been restricted 

 to horses of known breeding, from 

 whose performance useful information 

 may be derived. 



The Colorado Ride, while being in 

 terms identical with that conducted 

 in the East, will in fact be a very much 

 more severe ordeal, due to the circum- 

 stance that on several days of the 

 Ride the mid-dav halt will be between 

 1,500 and 2,000' feet higher than the 

 start on two more days it will be 

 more than 1,000 feet lower. These 

 heavy gradients, if negotiated success- 

 fully and with approximately equal 

 speed, will unquestionably make a bet- 

 ter showing for the Colorado horses." — 

 The Remount. Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 13 

 and 14. 



