1880.] TRANSACTIONS. 71 



hitherto scouted, but deserving thorongli investigation ! Perhaps 

 nothing is actually demonstrable. But did any one anticipate 

 Gravitation until the apple fell at tlie feet of Newton ? Our 

 learned associate, — the Editor of the Gardeners' Monthly, copies 

 from the Gardener'^s Chronicle^ (Eng.) : 



"A White Doyenue pear, which had borne nothing but worthless, 

 cracked fruit, for years, having three years previous all its upper 

 branches grafted with Autunui Berganiot, the lower branches of the 

 White Doyenne being suffered to remain. A sprout of Marie Louise, 

 growing just below the point of union, was overlooked in the grafting, 

 and bore, last year, clean, perfect fruit ; all the rest of the tree being 

 cracked and worthless as before." 



And comments thus: — 



" The most probable influence in accounting for this is, that this 

 shoot had received its conditions of health from the Autumn Berga 

 mot above it." 



The conclusion is not inevitable, since a check in the develop- 

 ment of a tree, imposed by the excision requisite for grafting, 

 might of itself have such results. Yet what say other observers 

 who, having eyes, see ? Take the Belle Lucrative, for one case ! 

 almost destroyed by the Blight; but which, grafted with the 

 Washington, has since betrayed no signs of disease, whether 

 in scion or stock. And then the Glout Morceau, — double 

 worked, — which yielded one good crop of superior fruit and 

 thereafter blighted every year! Grafte 1 again with the Josephine 

 de Malines, there has been no blight since the fortunate union. 

 Was this an example of the reflex action of the stock upon the 

 scion? Or did the scion control the stock? Was it "Natural 

 Selection," — or merely an instance of — I don't know ! 



Yet again, — scions of Glout Morceau grafted into the Law- 

 reyice, have so far continued, for years in succession, to make a 

 thrifty growth, without symptoms of disease in the wood of 

 either variety. True, — unlike the other cases cited, this tree has 

 not yet borne fruit. But are fecundity and the Blight insepara- 

 ble ? Does a tree ever blight that is barren ? Or, unless and 

 when it is set full of fruit ! In which case, may not its decline 

 and death be attributable to exhaustion, caused by a lack of 

 proper nutriment in the soil, itself, impoverished by an unbroken 



