ANOMALIES OF DEVELOPMENT. CHAP. V. 



formed in it from excess of humidity, or other 

 causes.* It must be confessed that this is but a 

 very clumsy contrivance for the carrying off of super- 

 fluous humours, which might be much more easily 

 got rid of by means of transpiration ; though it 

 must, at the same time, be admitted that we are but 

 bad judges of the facility with which nature effects 

 her operations. But it appears from an experiment 

 of Mr. Knight's that the fruit and fruit-stalk do 

 actually generate wood in certain circumstances, for 

 lie says expressly that he succeeded at last in graft- 

 ing the fruit-stalk of the Vine on the leaf-stalk ; in 

 which case the fruit or fruit-stalk must have formed 

 wood.-f~ 



But how are these two contradictory experiments 

 to be reconciled ? Perhaps in the natural process of 

 vegetation there is but little juice returned by the 

 bark of the fruit-stalk ; while in the case of the graft 

 it might have been an extraordinary effort of the 

 vital principle by which the part grafted was adapt- 

 ing itself to the circumstances in which it was placed, 



CHAPTER V. 



ANOMALIES OF VEGETABLE DEVELOPEMENT. 



IN the growth of the vegetable subject as well as 

 in that of the animal, it often happens that a devia- 

 tion from the general laws of developement is occa- 



* Phil. Trans. 1801. f Ibid. 1803. 



