GRAFTING AND NURSERIES. 209 



PART IV. 



GRAFTING AND NURSERIES. 



The grafting of the vine has been known for centuries ; 

 the Roman agriculturists gave very precise indications as to 

 the manner of performing it. The same methods are in use 

 now. 



In our French vineyards it has always been a common prac- 

 tice, in order to change the variety, as was done in Languedoc, 

 when, after the advent of railway communication, Terret- 

 Bourret -vineyards had to be transformed to Aramon vine- 

 yards ; or in order to substitute fertile varieties for non-set- 

 ting varieties ; or to enable delicate and weak varieties to grow 

 in poor soils; and, as often done now, as a means of rapidly 

 multiplying rare cepages. 



But it is especially since the use of American vines for the 

 reconstitution of vineyards that grafting has become a 

 general practice. In 1869 M. Laliman, at the Congress at 

 Beaune, and afterwards Gaston Bazille, first demonstrated 

 its great importance. Now it is a cultural operation with 

 which every vigneron is familiar. And out of the 1,687,000 

 acres of American vines cultivated in France in 1895 at least 

 1,446,000 acres were grafted. 



I. ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE GRAFT. 



We are not going to make a detailed and complete study 

 of this question. Its importance, however, is very great. If 

 we knew exactly how the tissues of the joint knit, the con- 

 ditions which favour or check the knitting, the phenomena 

 which take place between the stock and the scion, which, 

 while they preserve their individual characters are obliged 

 to live in common, the knowledge would be of the greatest 

 utility, particularly if the desire be to obtain a larger per- 

 centage and better joints, and for the choice, when it is pos- 

 sible, of a grafting-stock which would best suit a given 

 European vine. This, however, is completely unknown. 

 We will endeavour to explain how to understand, from 

 known facts, the phenomena of grafting. 



