248 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 



knowing that one has few long naked roots, while the 

 others have short and numerous fibrous ones. These 

 various forms of roots cannot be satisfactorily accounted 

 for in any other way but to ascribe the cause to the influ- 

 ence of the graft. If we take a seedling Apple tree of one 

 or two years old, and divide the root into two parts, upon 

 one of which we splice a cion .of Monmouth Pippin, and 

 on the other one of the Korthern Spy, and plant both in 

 exactly the same soil, side by side, and cultivate them alike, 

 after three or four years the roots will ha.ve a decidedly 

 diiferent appearance both 411 color and form. Still, with 

 all the influence the cion has had upon the roots in chang- 

 their form and color, if cuttings are taken from these 

 roots and forced to produce shoots, the plants thus raised 

 will be of the original type, showing that the influence of 

 the cion is not perpetual, but continues only so long as 

 the roots are in position to gatlfler the crude nutrients 

 from the soil for the leaves on the cion to assimilate ; 

 thus, while this reciprocal action continues, whether it be 

 for one or fifty years, the cion will continue to hold its 

 influence over the stock or roots. 



A few instances have been recorded where the dons with 

 variegated leaves have so influenced the stock as to cause 

 it to produce shoots below the point of union, bearing 

 leaves like those on the cion. But whether this change 

 is due to some disease inherited in the cion, or the inter- 

 mingling of the cellular matter of the two parts, has 

 never been fully determined. Although this subject of 

 reciprocal action between stock and graft has been fre- 

 quently referred to by writers on horticultural topics, 

 from the time Pliny wrote his "Historia Naturalis," down 

 to the present, still, there does -not, appear to have been 

 any very carefully conducted experiments made for the 

 express purpose of ascertaining its exact extent or limits. 

 It remains an almost wholly unexplored field, to be occu- 

 pied by some future disciple of vegetable phenomenology. 



