152 Grafting and its effects on trees 



many kinds introduced for many years past are lost to 

 us or rarely seen. 



North America was long a rich source of such plants, 

 but apparently there are many more kinds there than 

 was ever suspected to be the case, and it behoves us in 

 the case of the best to always secure them as seedling 

 plants, which certainly cannot be very difficult. Given 

 the natural root, we have the plant as long as we care to 

 grow it. The greater failure, however, arises when 

 great forest Pines of north-western America are grown 

 in any way but from seed. The rare Pines used to 

 be grafted, and this perhaps was excusable when they 

 first came over, but never in the case of any woodland 

 planting. Cuttings are nearly as bad. Owing to the 

 facility of increase of some Cypress-like trees of the 

 Pacific coast of North America, such as Lawson's 

 Cypress and the Giant Thuja, these were frequently 

 grown in nurseries from cuttings, which is probably the 

 cause of the unsatisfactory bushy growth of some of 

 these trees, which, instead of arising as erect stems as 

 in their own country, break out into it may be eight 

 or ten stems on one tree. It is not difficult to get such 

 trees from seed. In any other way they should never 

 be grown. 



