14 PROPAGATION. 



In the case, however, of very small trees or stocks, which are 

 grafted below the surface of the ground, as is frequently the 

 practice with the Apple in American nurseries, the stocks are 

 grafted in the house in winter, or early spring, put away care- 

 fully in a damp cellar, and planted out in the spring ; but this 

 method is only successful when the root is small, and when the 

 top of the stock is taken off, and the whole root is devoted to 

 supplying the graft with nourishment. 



The theory of grafting is based on the power of union between 

 the young tissues, or organizable matter of growing wood. When 

 the parts are placed nicely in contact, the ascending sap of the 

 stock passes into and sustains life in the scion ; the buds of the 

 latter, excited by this supply of sap and the warmth of the sea- 

 son, begin to elaborate and send down woody matter, which, 

 passing through the newly granulated substance of the parts in 

 contact, unites the graft firmly with the stock. "If," says De 

 Candolle, " the descending sap has only an incomplete analogy 

 with the wants of the stock, the latter does not thrive, though 

 the organic union may have taken place ; and if the analogy be- 

 tween the alburnum of stock and scion is wanting, the organic 

 union does not operate ; the scion cannot absorb the sap of the 

 stock and the graft fails." 



Grafting therefore is confined within certain limits. A scion 

 from one tree will not, from the want of affinity, succeed on every 

 other tree, but only upon those to which it is allied. We are, in 

 short, only successful in budding or grafting where there is a 

 close relationship and similarity of structure between the stock 

 and the scion. This is the case with varieties of the same species, 

 which take most freely, as the different sorts of Apple ; next with 

 the different species of a genus as the Apple and the Pear, which 

 grow, but in which the union is less complete and permanent ; 

 and lastly with the genera of the same natural family, as the 

 Cherry on the Plum which die after a season or two. The 

 ancients boasted of Vines and Apples grafted on Poplars and 

 Elms ; but repeated experiments, by the most skilful cultivators 

 of modern times, have clearly proved that although we may, 

 once in a thousand trials* succeed in effecting these ill assorted 

 unions, yet the graft invariably dies after a few months growth.* 



The range in grafting or budding, for fruit trees in ordinary 



* The classical horticulturist will not fail to recall to mind Pliny's account of 

 the tree in the garden of Lucullus, grafted in such a mariner as to bear Olives, 

 Almonds, Apples, Pears, Plums, Figs, and Grapes. There is little doubt, however, 4 

 that this was some ingenious deception as to this day the Italian gardeners pre- 

 tend to sell Jasmines, Honeysuckles, &c., growing together and grafted on Oranges 

 and Pomegranates. This is ingeniously managed, for a short lived effect, by intro- 

 ducing the stems of these smaller plants through a hole bored up the centre of the 

 stock of the trees their roots being in the same soil, and their stems, which after a 

 little grnvth fill up these holes, appearing as if really grafted. 



