119 



of some herbaceous plart* rical masses, that 



are. pretty con d see MI t nn t'ie ffiee of a 



bulb. The head of a cabbage \ .^elf, 



in order to contribute to the u<;oi - ><r t , Hu ute 

 stalk it contains. Place orre of the i -- Hi; a >,ei 

 full of water, and it will exhibit to you the sa^. phei;o- 

 mena as the bulb 01 a flower. 



8. The branches that bend down from certain trees 

 to the earth, take root there, and become themselves 

 young trees. Human industry carries t-as kind of mul- 

 tiplication to a much greater extent. By mean; thereof, 

 a single branch or root, divided into several parts, be- 

 comes so many individual plants. What do I say? ft 

 can even cause a tree to be produced from the smallest 

 shred of a leaf. Such is the multiplication from slips. 



The organs essential to life being dispersed throughout 

 the whole body of the subject, the slip that is detached 

 from it, and planted in the earth, is of itself capable of 

 forming new productions ; it has every thing necessary 

 for the unfolding of the radicles and buds. Thus a 

 single leaf takes root, and vegetates by its own strength. 



There is another kind of multiplication that is very 

 remarkable, which consists in planting one or more slips, 

 not in the earth, but iii the trunk or branches of a living 

 tree. This is grafting - } the first idea of which may 

 perhaps have been owing to the accidental union of two 

 branches or two fruits. 



The next cause of the union of the graft with its 

 subject, is in the intercourse of the sap-vessels with each 

 other ; and this intercourse depends ultimately on the 

 relation of their parts, and particularly on that of their 

 consistence, and the liquors contained in them. By the 

 assistance of a graft the gardener causes the wild stock 

 to produce the finest fruits; he gives youth to trees, and ga- 

 thers plums from the almond tree, and pears from the ash. 

 Filtrating, and the preparation of the juices of the subject 

 by the vessels of the graft, occasion these productions. 

 The roll which is always formed at the insertion, and is 

 2 



