276 KOOT-GRAFTED TREES. 



Spy. Still, even such are better confined to a small 

 garden ; and, if I judge not too harshly, they will 

 often want propping to guard them against the 

 wind. When the root is used entire, the tree is as 

 valuable in every respect as one which has been 

 budded. 



Some naturalists have argued that all the plants 

 of any variety are parts of one individual, which is 

 the original seedling ; that every layer, cutting, and 

 offshoot which have been rooted and dismembered, 

 are not separate individuals, but only parts of the 

 parent. Others, among whom have been some of 

 the most renowned, state, with equal persistence, 

 that each is a perfect individual in itself. But do 

 not the latter overlook the fact that these layers and 

 parts were made independent by artificial means'? 

 that they must be noticed scientifically, as they 

 would exist in a natural state 1 An individual plant 

 must be one which has passed through all the 

 periods of growth, from infancy upwards ; originally, 

 directly from a seed ; having, or having had, cotyle- 

 dons, a plumule, an ascending axis, a descending 

 one, and a collar. Artificial plants have none of 

 these but the ascending axis. 



The fact that some diseases will attack a certain 

 variety at once, or nearly so, — some locations being 

 so favorable as to ward it off for a time, — shows that 

 varieties grow old and die, as they would have done 



